"Does this band actually have the ability to release bad stuff?"

Outright bad probably not.

Album Rating: 3.5

Amen on that



This is growing on me, though defo not on a par with their last 6 albums. S I X

Album Rating: 3.5

Psychotzar is such a fucking banger

Album Rating: 4.0

Yeah this is great motorpsycho as is the norm but not the huge jump from 'the tower' i hoped for. Still more than solid.

Album Rating: 4.0

Band is so bloody underappreciated

Album Rating: 4.0

I hear ya

Album Rating: 3.5

not the huge jump from 'the tower' i hoped for [2]



Saw these boys live yesterday finally. Psychotzar rips live

Album Rating: 4.0

The whole album rips live I would say! Fuck, they played like 2:20 hours the night I saw them. Possibly the longest rock show I have seen in my life outside of Bruce Springsteen.



I really like this album, i could even imagine to bump it to 4.5 at some point. I like how it has the magical vibe of 70s Prog, the stoner groove madness and more free and wilder jam parts all intertwined without taking a notch off the feeling of being a coherent and consistent album!



I suggest soemone show this to Akerfeldt in order to show him how to do 70s prog based music faithfully and originally and forwardthinking at the same time!!

Absolute legends.

Album Rating: 4.0

Finally figured out how to nab this album. How in the world did this end up being better than The Tower? I need to start getting in these guys discography so badly.

You need to check Heavy Metal Fruit asap.

Check Angels and Daemons at Play, boys. Probably their magnum opus for me, the complete LP tracklist at least.

I still really like this band, but roughly from Black Hole onwards they started to standardize their sound and it's not the same thing anymore imo. Then again, considered how eclectic they used to be, one should cut some slack for being still able to produce so much cool stuff.

Album Rating: 3.5

Ooof controversial statement there lad



Unicorn / Fruit are surely anything but standardised?? Then you get a softer more 60s infused sound on Monsters and harder-edged with the new drummer on the last two



Still haven't heard Angels and Daemons though, gotta check asap

They are surely far from being a generic band, but I can't shake the feeling that for the past ~decade they've been rotating around the same core sound for their main studio albums that feels colder and more "business" (as in automated, not greed-driven) than what I was used to from them.

They've always toyed with soft psych tunes and I do appreciate how they expanded that side in Monsters.

Maybe I'm simply too fond of their 1993-1998 period (and also their pop escapade in the early 2000s), but their music of today doesn't excite me like they did in those years. Those old albums are also their highest and most rated on RYM, so I don't think I'm the only one in feeling this.
Though I do am bitter about the fact that Trust Us and Timothy's Monster are their only bolded albums on RYM haha since my favorites are Angels and Blissard.

"Still haven't heard Angels and Daemons though, gotta check asap"
Beware that the tracklist slightly differs from edition to edition. The song Back to Source for instance is only in the vinyl versions and in the 6-discs boxset, while Have Spacesuit Will Travel (which is like 14 minutes of pure spacey noodling) is sometimes absent, sometimes its own track and other times it's glued together with Un Chien D'espace.

Album Rating: 3.5

Ahh I feel you, I would agree there's more similarities in the Fruit - Crucible run than you might find between Trust Us/Cake/Phanerothyme for example but I gotta say their musicianship stepped up crazily from Fruit which is for me their biggest draw.



On the 'business' as usual, I feel like there was a 'magic' on the 4 album run of Fruit - Behind the Sun, probably thanks to the addition of Kapstad (Bent has even said Kapstad's playing forced him in particular to up his playing, and Snah's playing reached god levels by songs like Ratcatcher), and since then they've kind of levelled out. I first felt it on Here Be Monsters when they didn't really do anything new with it - maybe that fire had started to burn out and maybe that's why Kapstad ended up leaving?

On the last three it definitely feels a bit like they're churning out songs for the sake of it - where's that emotional depth from Behind the Sun or jawdropping songwriting from Fruit/Unicorn?



In a way this album needed to be the start of a new era for them or that narrative of them standardising their sound would become the case, but ultimately this one is more of the same really. But that's not at all to chastise them, even at this level they're miles above most bands doing this kind of music.



IMO Fruit and Unicorn are their best work (hoping one day they'll both be dug out and hailed as masterpieces lol) but then again the only two I've never listened to are Angels and Blissard so sounds like I'm madly missing out! 14 minutes of pure spacey noodling sounds like 14 minutes of eargasm, how could they cut that out wtf

Oh for sure, they keep growing as musicians. Really what irks me now is that they could likely crank out songs like Psychotzar in their sleep. The artwork gives me the idea that this is The Tower Part 2, so I'll stop my negativity until next time which I imagine won't be too long anyway.

I guess it just comes down to what sounds you dig the most. I miss the alt/indie vibes that gave both energy (Hey Jane) and melancholy (In the Family) to some songs, and I miss how those were alternated with chaotic noisy tracks. Like, speaking of Angels, you find both songs like Like Always (Motorpsycho pop punk?) and heavy mammoths like Heartattack Mac. And now it should be clear why I also love Blissard's catchy melancholy haha.

Of course I realize they couldn't keep doing that forever, they had to shed the "youth vibes" sooner or later. They are still very much Motorpsycho, I won't argue with that. You mentioned Ratcatcher and that song is a prime example because it isn't that far from something you could find on Angels sound-wise.

You know typing this post I realize that I might just be dissatisfied with the current "Tower duology" as I was hinting at the beginning.

As for the 14 minutes of noodling, I don't really know why they cut it. Angels was born as three separate EPs, okay... but the full-length version could have fit in a single disc with no problem, maybe even with the inclusion of Back to Source even though it gets dangerously close to the 79 minutes cap (my vinyl rip is 78:50).

sometimes i tend to forget that these guys are Norwegians

Album Rating: 3.5

@Sab



I can defo get behind the feeling towards the last 2 albums, they neeeeed to branch out on the next one or they will finally have stagnated.. and I suppose that is the key difference between pre/post-2010 Motorpsycho is the 'youth vibes' have bled away, but replaced with the more mature emotions of tracks like Ghost and Entropy that's kinda beautiful

You could say they lost the sad boi vibes haha.

Btw Lux Aeterna rules.

Album Rating: 4.0

The 2019 version of close to the edge. One lp side taken up of a multi-chaptered rollercoaster tied together by a monster bass line. The other side containing a up beat rock song that actually is way more than that and a subtle and twisted 'ballad'. Are these too many similarities to be coincidentally?