Motorpsycho - Little Lucid Moments (Rune Grammafon)
4/5
By: Charlie Potter
This album is structurally adventurous, technically impressive and melodically addictive. It's the third of these elements that's the real clincher for Little Lucid Moments though. Motorpsycho seem to have taken all the good bits about 70's melody that we thought we had forgotten about and used them to great effect, without there being any danger of it sounding kitsch. There are vague hints of the likes of The Eagles and Supertramp to Motorpsycho, but I don't want to give the impression that this music doesn't sound modern.
I had never so much as heard of Motorpsycho before our editor handed me Little Lucid Moments, but it turns out they have been making (presumably brilliant) music for more than15 years. The four tracks that make up little lucid moments range in the lofty region of 12 - 21 minutes but at no point are they boring, and could rarely be accused of being self indulgent. This is a rare ability and a unique feat of song structuring, but it doesn't feel forced or proggy, you feel that it is merely second nature to Motorpsycho. There are of course build ups here and there, but this is kept to a minimum - the band still manage to have plenty of short blasts of riffs and verses and choruses that repeat just as much as you would expect from any pop song.
Rune Grammafon have really proved a point with Little Lucid Moments. Not only do they release consistently good jazz but when they adventure further a field they don't do it just to look cool and open minded, they do it to push a really great album.
The latter two of the four tracks are not quite as impressive as the lead couple, but it still stands that you just really don't hear a song as melodically mature as 'Year Zero (a Damage Report)' every day. I can't express enough how impressed I am with this album, which for me has come from nowhere. And it does help that the musicianship is masterfully skilful, particularly the drumming, which seems to consistently energise each track - something which, considering the length of them, is really quite impressive. The band seem to have a great deal of fun playing what is quite a varied palette of emotional and aesthetic pieces and I imagine they would be quite a spectacle live, whether they are rocking out or whether they are playing some of the more emotional, hippy aspects of their music.
I doubt I will go back and buy all their albums, but it would be great if this band became one of those bands that people pretend they knew all along, because they deserve at least some kind of legacy.
Artists in this article: Motorpsycho
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