Motorpsycho – Yay!

 

Motorpsycho – Yay!
Stickman Records – 2023
Rock, Psych, Prog, Folk
Rated: ***

Nay! Oh, no, did I just give away, our most enduring thought about the new Motorpsycho release Yay! We love so much of what Motorpsycho has put out over the years, we sort expect to fall in love with whatever the boys in Norwegian sweaters think off next. The first hiccup was with their last release Ancient Astronauts. Which was or was not already a pandemic album, well Yay! apparently needs to be interpreted as one as well. Locked out of touring and locked in their studio, they went to work on something much more intimate, often fragile, light and retro. And as the final album with drummer Tomas Järmyr it will sit there as the album that charted a different course, if that course remains true on following albums, remains to be seen. But for now we get a lot of acoustic guitars and drum work of a different kind. Often using whatever lay in reach for percussion so it seems. A lot of folk, the campfire kind and fading polaroids filled with their love for sixties pop and sixties rock. And then there’s the beautiful, one of a kind, theatrical, grandiose Hotel Daedalus, that marries what you heard in the songs prior to the progressive side of them we all know so well and love so dearly. Of course earlier on in the gigantic Motorpsycho discography they did deviate and vary more, and this album seems to harken more towards a few of those past albums, from some twenty or more years ago. Was it time to revisit those styles they loved and used in the past? Or was there simply time, for this once, because of the lockdown, to do that? Whatever the case, Hotel Daedalus, with its gigantic chandelier as center piece in the lobby, its sweeping orchestral elements seems to bring more to the table then the rest of Yay!

(Written by JK)

Homepage

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram