Motorpsycho Set Feb. 15 Release for The Crucible LP
I’m not even going to pretend to know how many full-length albums Norway’s Motorpsycho have at this point released in their almost 30-year history, but The Crucible is the latest of the bunch, and it will follow behind 2017’s The Tower (review here), which marked a more rocking turn from the long-established progressive stylings of the band. Sort of a return to roots without forgetting the lessons learned along the way. Stickman Records, which released that album and will again stand behind this one, seems to posit The Crucible as pushing forward along those lines, and I’d believe it, given both the relatively quick turnaround (at least on general terms; Motorpsycho aren’t strangers to putting out multiple releases in a year, but they’ve also been touring) and the band’s penchant for moving ahead with ideas from one LP to the next.
Easy pick for your most-anticipated-of-2019 list, as well as my own, so keep an eye out for more to come as we get closer to February. I streamed a track from The Tower at the time, and I expect I’ll go begging for one for The Crucible as well to go with a review, if only because these guys are fun to write about, being such a nuanced kind of brilliant and all.
Stickman sent the following down the PR wire:
New Motorpsycho album The Crucible to be released February 15th
We are beyond pleased to announce the coming arrival of a new Motorpsycho album, titled “The Crucible”! Release date is set for February 15th, 2019 on vinyl, CD and digitally. More details will follow, but here’s a little taster for you:
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Crucible
noun
cru·?ci·?ble | \?krü-s?-b?l
1: a severe test
2 : a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development
Both visually and musically, The Crucible starts where the last album The Tower ended, but it soon takes on its own hue, and it is clear that it cannot be called a ‘sequel’ as such: this is very much a step further out than anywhere the band ventured on The Tower. While it is broader lyrically speaking, it is even sharper focused musically and, if possible, even more idiosyncratic and insular than ever. Unarguably a Motorpsycho album, it is one that is going to make the novice Psychonaut’s head spin, but feel comfortingly unfamiliar to the acolyte. Motorpsycho was always too gnarly for prog nerds as well as too musically unwieldy for punks, and as their appeal becomes ever more selective, they are still proudly falling between all cracks, stools or chairs one might think of putting in their way. ‘Prog rock’? Call it Motorpsychodelia!
The Crucible was recorded at Monnow Valley Studios in Wales in August 2018 by Hans Magnus Ryan (guitars, vocals), Bent Sæther (bass, vocals, sundry) and Tomas Järmyr (drums), with co-producers Andrew Scheps and Deathprod. To these ears, and to the band’s satisfaction, this co-production ploy worked out wonderfully, and has resulted in a beautifully crafted record, smaller in size but at least equal in ambition to its celebrated predecessor. It is somehow both more focused, and denser in content, but also compositionally more ambitious than The Tower. One would perhaps think that this necessarily results in a diminished sonic assault, but the album still packs a wallop like a good rock record should. And – ‘for once’ some waggish tongues would say – does not outstay its welcome.
Motorpsycho is: Bent Sæther, Hans Magnus “Snah” Ryan, Tomas Järmyr.
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