Motorpsycho

Motorpsycho has always been of the opinion that the most interesting stuff happens in any art form before it is formatted and settled. In rock music, this phenomenon peaked in and around 1970, and it is in this period that the best heavy music was made, simply because the rules weren’t set, there were not ropes yet, and there were no clichés to fall back on.

The Gaia ll Space Corps is an album of tunes that don’t quite sound like heavy metal or hard rock, but clearly is reaching for some of the same qualities. It is post-psychedelic, pre-metal music, and is probably as close to making a true blue ‘classic hard rock’ album Motorpsycho ever will come. The Gaia ll Space Corps is a short, concise, catchy and exciting album, continuing where Motorpsycho’s Stanley and The Come back left off. The instrumentation is mostly guitars, guitars and some more guitars, but there is quite a bit of singing in there too, and even an occasional keyboard sound or two as well. But mostly this is guitar music that ...well, rocks! Hard!!

The first single is the album’s lead off track Fanny Again Or. This Bent sung fable is a shot of adrenaline that fairly reeks of the Osmonds (and comes with a faint whiff of the Hammer of the Gods). It is a riffy proposition that can’t help but get the blood up in any and every true rocker! Snah then sings the tragic-but-groovy psych rocker The Great Stash Robbery, a Freak Brothers-esque tall tale of the ‘pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you though times of no pot’-variety. Other stand-outs are the bluesy, nervy juggernaut TSMcR where the band, with Reine in the lead, almost derails as it channels the sci-fi blues of the mighty Groundhogs, and the title track, an exciting 60’s stomper celebrating the proud feats of the titular organisation. It features Snah on electric sitar. The Hornet choogles briskly along (‘...and don’t forget to boogie!’), before the epic, Snah sung ballad The Oracle lets the sun in for a breath of air. Light and shade, right? This version of the band (Ryan / Sæther, with Fiske and Olsen) then tops it all by delivering an epic, knock-out version of the old Frost classic Black As Night to end proceedings in appropriate Detroit style.

‘They don’t make records like this anymore’ the band thought, then went and did something about it. Recorded both at the Old Cheese Factory in Trondheim and in Amper Tone in Oslo, The Gaia ll Space Corps proudly sounds like it was recorded in 1970 and makes up in excitement for what it might lack in subtlety. And sometimes you just gotta let it rip, dontcha? Motorpsycho certainly thinks so, and offers up The Gaia ll Space Corps as an answer to the acoustic jangle of Yay! [NFGS0223] and the epic workouts of Motorpsycho [NFGS0125]. Made with love and respect for a dying art form, it’s energy will leave you reeling, deaf and happy, socks rocked well and truly off! Rock is dead, long live rock!