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well… my copy arrived yesterday morning and i listened to it three times and now for the fourth time. I really like it! At the moment I like Ship Of Fools most. Sounds a lot like Yes in some parts. As well Intrepid Explorer (more Floydish) and ASFA (very tight). Great stuff! Love It!
3/4 way through, so good. Isn't the end melody in
maypole[edit:a pacific sonata i meant] kinda adapted from taifun?Speaking of Maypole, there is a nice little guitar melody which keeps reminding me of The Sailboat Song
Grows more and more. This álbum is amazing.
Any news about 24bits hi-res album? The album deserves this
Mellotron in A Pacific Sonata is similar to Dekdektiven røker om natten.
Well ship of fools is great and in the end that organ at 13.16 min and before Sounds like If Ray Manzarek is back from the dead and is mighty pissed off… Thats what comes to my mind…
Ah so it's not too bad then? Still on holidays for another week while my copy waits in my postbox back home. Could listen to it on youtube but must.resist.and.be.patient…….. And stoked to hear Alain Johannes is involved, I hope he and Dave Catching spread the word!
Listening to the TOWER made me want to share a few thoughts:
Initially I was happy that the songs didn’t automatically click, always a good sign, and I feel that most of the Kenneth-era studio records have been too straight forward, you get the drift of every song after one listen. The notable exception is of course the great Unicorn which just might be the beautiful and weird sister of this album. Apart from that I think Trust Us was the last MP-record to give me such a BUZZ. This is abs great stuff! A great album, and I´m pretty blown away that they managed to pull this out of the hat as I have long missed the weirdness and kraut/stoner/trippy-drone rock that MP always did so well, and which has been absent since whenever.
It's hard to pick out any favourite, initially I felt Bartok was a slight low-point, too much adrenaline for my taste, but hey, why not, it's pretty fun and a killer riff and not a dudd like eg. Neverland. Even Revolver had Got to Get You into My Life, right? This is maybe the strongest collection of songs in their career imo. All the golden oldies are of course hard to beat, there's no Taifun or PPPP here, but compared to this newfound complexity and production and with SNAHs wild playing and Bents songwriting chops more dynamic than ever the 90s actually seem slightly old and dusty, finally. This is def a career highpoint (of many). And, live, wow, can't wait. And for the future, I can't wait, this new trio combo is SOLID! NOW, get yourselves over to the US for some gigs!
Thank you!
(This is of course just MY opinion, and saying all this I also find a lot of the Kenneth-era records consistently great, though not consistently GREAT;)
I do take some self-criticism w the constant and tiresome comparisons to their early catalogue but that's what fans do I guess, nerd away and write lists!
Now, it would be fun with some more reflections on the album. I see that the tour starts this week somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean (must be an awesome setting) – looking forward to read some reviews! And people – YouTube away! Meanwhile I'll be tripping away on the Pacific Sonata;) Peace🤘
Bartok – are you my twin separated at birth? I could have written the exact same thing about this album. It's a home run. I haven't been able to let it all sink in yet, but my sentiments were exactly like yours – it didn't hit me immediately, yet I instantly knew there was something there to be discovered. Slowly, it's beginning to creep in, and you get *THAT* feeling…the buzz, the goosebumps…thinking about the album while busy at work, wanting to replay the track you just heard because it was so awesome, but can't skip because the track that just started is equally great…
The most important thing is; this album has "THE SPOOK" as Neil Young would say. Maybe not consistently across all the songs, although I will not say that for sure until I've had time to let it all sink properly in.
If anyone was worried that Thomas Järmyr wouldn't be a good fit, you can let all your worries fade away. He is *perfect* for the job. Somewhere in between Geb's amazing musicality and telepathic understanding of the music, and Kenneth's muscle and technical skills. Like Bartok wrote, I also felt *something* went missing in the Kenneth years…a certain weirdness and edge that was polished away. I am not going to badmouth the Kenneth years, but as I have said before, I appreciated the albums more than I loved them, with a few notable exceptions. This album, at least at its best, reinstalls a lot of that weirdness. And as Bartok says – I *finally* feel like Motorpsycho has moved out of the unbeliavably tall shadow of their 90s output.
I don't have the lyrics at hand, but first impression is that these are the best lyrics Bent has written in years and years. And perhaps that's part of the success of this album – it just feels inspired, necessary and relevant in a way that the Kenneth era albums never succeeded in doing.
I suppose most of you here have heard the album by now, but just a few words on my album faves so far:
– Bartok of the Universe: one of the few tracks that actually live up to the advance reports of "heaviest" Motorpsycho album in years…as a whole album it's not particularly heavy and actually very varied, but this one is pure Sabotage-era Black Sabbath, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Perhaps the closest thing to stoner rock they've done, which would normally have been a turn-off for me, but this is irresistible. The riffage is just completely off the chart, and there's a new twist at every turn.
– A.S.F.E.: I was lukewarm at first, but in the context of the album it's a driving rocker with a lot of catchiness and just enough weirdness.
– Intrepid Explorer: this one is hard to describe…ethereal, psychedelic, kraut-y and drone-y…can't really compare it to anything else they've done, but when it's over you really feel like you've been on a trip. Beautiful.
– The Cuckoo: OMG. Again, one of the hardest things on the album, and Bent is pissed off. This would have fit right in on King Crimson's Red album, with a middle section lifted from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and the goosebumps are impossible to stop.
– Ship of Fools: another centerpiece of the album, a grande finale, and the kraut factor is high in the end section.
The final verdict isn't in as far as grading, but it's tempting to use the boring description…BEST ALBUM SINCE TRUST US!
Nice review, O could not write it better
http://echoesanddust.com/2017/09/motorpyscho-the-tower/
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