Review of Soothe
taken from the
Italian magazine
RUMORE #7 / September 1992.
English translation done by Sunchild, slightly reworked by the Lighthouse Girl.

Motorpsycho
Soothe

No, that's not John Cipollina who's featured on the cover of Soothe, Motorpsycho's new dazzling mini album. It isn't a frame from Shining either.

He's Snah, guitarist of this wonderful Norwegian trans-grunge band, one of the best heard in the past years. Let's make a general consideration. If we assume that the two watermarks of grunge have always been Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr, we easily realize that Motorpsycho has laid the foundations to surpass them both. The composition of each song is extremely original indeed. Take a song like Lighthouse Girl - more than nine minutes of sonic eruptions / melodies.

The song in question is built on a piercing and very hypnotic bass riff alternating mystical 'vacuums' and torrential 'fills' of noise, feedback orchestrated with knowledge and skill. Somehow it's the closest thing to the perfect crossing between Joy Division and Sonic Youth that i've ever heard. And the other six songs, too, build an extremely varied sound spectrum, re-echoing sounds and vibrations as they've already been heard on the records of God's Acre, Afghan Whigs and, why not, Syd Barrett and Jane's Addiction (listen to The Wait and you'll understand what I'm talkin' about!). Everything re-worked up with imagination and richness of ideas, which is equally layed down in electric and acoustic moods, in the workout of guitar and bass (Bent the bassist is an ace). At the end, there is a wrenched grunge version of California Dreamin'!

Really rapturous, I've got no more to say. It's such a pity that their record are so poorly distributed, but never say die, it's gonna be released as a cd containing their first two mini albums.

Claudio Sorge