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Sounds ok-ish.
@fco I also got this Behind the Sun association immediately. And interesting use of keyboards (?) or whatever. This is the tiny bit inside this track that keeps me hoping for some evolution of their sound to some new phase.Wait for the complete thing and we will talk again :wink:
ja! Practising headbanging now. Nice glimpse, but I agree with others here, it should be appreciated within the context of the whole album
raaahhhhh! Vikingbloodboiling
Well it's not doing much for me on the first few listens, but I'm excited to see where it leads. Bring on April 16.
EDIT: A couple more listens and it's growing on me – even a nice little earworm taking hold! But there's a key/chord change in the middle of each verse that feels a little jarring. The main riff is quickly growing on me though, and I see why some think of ZZ Top, although the resemblance wasn't initially obvious to me. I guess I get a bit of a COTF / Gulvag trilogy vibe.
Decent 1st impression. It will be interesting to see how The Waning sounds when we
can hear both of the parts :lol:
The Obelisk review really raised my expectations for the record. Bring on April 16th asap!
Been binging on it for a while tonite, and it doesn’t give me too much I must say, a bit disappointed about possible new landscapes, new sounds and explorations, and what “heavy†means for MP these days. But then again I was never a ZZ Top fan. But nice energy, and professional as always (hm professional is perhaps a prefix, but not a description I like to attribute to art). Feel that this non-melodic chorus is a bit overused by now. But it’s a nice rocker I suppose, rolling along. Excited to hear it in context, and the MP singles have never been the highlights of the albums the last years, so I’m pessimistically optimistic. Come Kingdom, come April 16.
And I totally get the Hell associations, same vibe. Not my favorite! I must say I’m a bit confused about Bents singing these days, what’s going on, it feels a bit like a machine? Maybe some production I’m not aware of, or maybe it’s the specter, this thing that is not a scream, but some safe notes/tones. I don’t know, but as in The Waining chorus, the end of each line ending on this note (the Hell note), three four times then back to the riff (pretty neat riff btw, as always). Just listened to BHBC and The 29th Bulletin to have some perspective of what his “mature†voice (not the adulescent scream) is or was able to convey, and man. So great. Not my favorite song, but the texture in the voice is maybe something that’s being digitally botoxed away these days. Bummer.
I think it might be the production more than the songwriting I can’t relate to. Or maybe both. Or maybe my inclinations are more attuned to old-school MP and I just have to deal w MP v3. Or v4. If so, that’s fine, new pastures, and I’ll stop being so negative on this forum reminiscing old times and let things be as they are. There’s a time for everything and the concerts are always great. But still hoping for some real MP weirdness and emotions ahead, it will make this COVID prison and life a bit sweeter. Let’s see in a few weeks.
I have to say that to me it is quite a let down. Listened to it twice from start to finish and didn't make it through ever since. The song just feels incredibly formulaic and generic. The sticking to a certain aesthetic on the last releases was somehow justified by the context of the trilogy, but i can't hear any trace of a new direction or fresh idea. Being the sonic scientists they are, i can hardly imagine the band being in the studio going " Wow, this is it!". I'll give the album a spin for sure, but my expectations went down wuite a bit. Anyway, sail on guys!
Same thoughts here. I gave it 3 spins, but no wow factor at all. Don't even wanna go back to it. Feels like i'm listening to a band in stagnation….on a pretty high level mind you…but still stagnation. I've pre-ordered the album, but i don't have the highest of hopes either. Hoping for a big suprise 😀
This could give opportunity for an interesting study: psychonautic behaviour awaiting a new MP release these days. Typical phenomena: minimizing expectance to avoid disappointment, signs of small enthusiasm at first listen, hope for improvement…
Happended to me with the last release – single (SOR) and album alike. These days I'm digging both a lot.
Anyway I might agree that the latter day releases show certain signs of more controlled approaches to recording and mixing that might encourage a certain feeling of overproduction and sterility. But still you couldn't complain of a lack of adventurous spirit with Motorpsycho up to now.
Some established bands stagnate because they just can't find a way forward, their creative juices have run dry, they have (song)writer's block, they no longer feel relevant, or they always think their next album is going to be compared to their greatest album and therefore is hardly worth the effort. Instead the members look for other projects, resign to being mediocre as long as the bills get paid, live on heritage-style tour money, or give up altogether. Hugely rare is the thirty-year-old band that says fuck-off to all that and just gets on with writing new music, playing new music, changing things up, and continuing to challenge themselves … and do interesting other projects on the side.
In the last five years Motorpsycho have given their fans music for a play (Begynnelser) that sounds nothing like anything they had done before (as well as performing in that play), The Tower, The Crucible and The All Is One — that's four discs of music, which, although sonically sound somewhat similar, were as a whole a definite move in the prog direction from what had gone before; and a fifth (NOX) that could stand on its own as an adventure in a different direction somewhat akin to In The Fishtank compared to LTEC/Phanero/IALC — and now another double album (Kingdom of Oblivion), that by accounts so far is related to the "Gulvag trilogy" in that a bunch of the songs came from the TAIO sessions, but may be more like Barracuda in that the songs had a heavy characater of their own that didn't fit with TAIO (and also includes some acoustic/folk material because, "hey, this is what we've been doing this week"). That's eight albums-worth of highly varied and in some cases very challenging music (even for this band's fans) in a time period that for most bands would elicit one album, maybe two if you're lucky (unless you're a fan of King Gizzard
). One may not enjoy the proggy stuff so much, or one may feel enough time has been spent on it, but I challenge fans of any other band to listen to Begynnelser, Intrepid Explorer, A Pacific Sonata, Ship of Fools, The Light Fantastic (the track), Delusion, NOX (and most likely at least one or two tracks from KOO) and still walk away thinking this band is stagnating or has run out of steam or ideas. Moreover, the quality! The quality of this music is outstanding. One or two tracks per album may come across as a bit meh, but I find it hard to be disheartened given the quantity and high quality we are unbelieveably lucky to experience as Motorpsycho fans. And I didn't even mention they're the best live band going, who don't even allow the songs they've laid down on vinyl to stagnate because they work and play on them every night they're on stage. The Cuckoo (for example) was, for me, a fairly dreary song until they started to explore it live, whence it became a gorgeous tapestry of threads unwound and reassenbled during the final jam.So while Yes's fans are continually going batshit because the band hasn't made another Close To The Edge, and the band themselves are unable to make another album becuase they know it'll always be compared negatively to thier great 70s albums, Motorpsycho just don't give a fuck about that – never have and as far as I can see, never will. So in the years since Yes made their last album, Motorpsycho have made around 15 (or more?) albums-worth of fucking amazing and highly varied music. 15 albums in ten years – that's more amazing music than some bands make in a lifetime. I may have found Same Old Rock and now The Waning (Pt. 1) a little unadventurous, but I really can't complain. I am super stoked about Kingdom of Oblivion, in particular because once again it sounds like it'll be an album of variety and becuase I'm hedging a bet that The Transmutation of Cosmoctopus Lurker will be as intriguing and captivating as the name itself.
I am still utterly blown away that a band like Motorpsycho even exists. Bring on the Kingdom of Oblivion!
Sounds really promising guys!!
expertly said.
even in the unlikely scenario where they were to never release a good album again, they have already done more in this 30 years than any other band I can think of.
and you don't need to go as far as Yes. just look at another band that was pushing the envelope in the early 90's. Tool was supposed to be the ones to renovate rock music, and they ended up running out of ideas after what, three albums? they took 13 years! to release their last one, and even then it turned out to be a dissapointing rehash of old ideas.
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