On Friday the 13th of September, the other band that really made me realize that the era where I first started listening to them really defines what I listen to with them released their 27th (!) album (although if you could add a couple other releases depending on how you choose to count. The band is Motorpsycho, and I think I already have shared a little bit about how I started listening to them the summer of 1993 - and I did see them live at least once a year until I moved to the US in 1999. To me, the albums they releasted from Demon Box in 1999 through Trust Us in 1998 are unparallelled in Norwegian rock history - and they also form one of the strongest album arcs of any artist/band I have followed.
However, following Trust Us, they started playing with pop arrangements, and while I think the three next albums are perfectly servicable with some songs that are absolutely spectacular, something was missing from the far out freak outs of their 90s output to me. It was still indeed Motorpsycho, but it did not hit me the same way as the earlier music had done. I almost wrote that it was not the same - but I am actually appreciative of that, as I do like that they grow, develop, and are true to themselves. But the thing was that to me, they didn't hit me the same way. Then their drummer, Gebhardt, left, and the album Black Hole/Blank Canvas was a letdown for me. I still struggle listening to it. But with their next album and their next drummer, Kenneth Kapstad, they were back to form again, and I loved the albums they released with him - but I struggle remembering many songs, if any. After Kapstad left, they got Tomas Järmyr in as a drummer, and once again, they created great albums that I enjoyed - but with limited durability or staying power.
Then Järmyr left, and they are back to the core duo of Bent Sæther on bass and vocals (and drums in the studio, at least) and Hans Magnus Ryan (Snah) on guitar and vocals. And then the album Neigh came out. And rarely has an album been more aptly named. It isn't that it is bad, and it could be that it will grow on me if I listen to it more, I just really don't feel like it. There is something missing. The lone highlight to me is Elysium, Soon - which sounds like the brother or sister of Evernine, one of the highlights of Trust Us for me. It's not that it's a bad album, as I already said, it's just not really clicking for me. And while I think that the obvious explanation to me is that it doesn't flow as freely as an album does when they play as an ensemble (although this was an odds and ends album, so the flow of the album may not have happened regardless - it's just that whenever they play a song without a drummer from outside the core duo, it sounds flat).
But I do think that in contrast to Nick Cave, this proves my point. I don't think they ever will reach the same heights for me that they reached in the 90s. I think we may have grown apart - and nostalgia may be a significant factor here as well - but the bottom line is that the music they made in the 90s still hits me as hard as it did back then. I still love those albums... Demon Box, Timothy's Monster, Blissard, Angels And Daemons at Play, and Trust Us still get played often. And whenever I play them, I get transported to this other world. And I don't even really need to play them to listen to them. They have tattooed themselves onto my nervous system, hardwired themselves into my cerebral cortex, so all I need to do is focus - and I am right there, from the first "hee haw" of Waiting For The One that opens Demon Box to the climactic finish of Hey Jane that mellows out with Dolphyn (Eric Dolphy, anyone?) that ends Trust Us. Just about all of it is right there. And that is the beauty of music.
Now I have followed them for 31 years, and I will follow them until they pack it all up and close the doors to their bunker (battening the hatches, so to speak) - and I will keep on enjoying their music, but they really haven't created music that keep visiting me since Trust us in 1998. They have not released bad albums, but their music just has not clicked with me to the same extent. The only exceptions to this are their Roadwork live albums, where you still can hear the fire burning. In that sense, they are getting closer to Grateful Dead in that their live work surpasses their studio work - they just need to keep putting out great live music... I will be here to buy and to listen.
In the meantime, I will keep on listening to the great albums from the 90s. And every now and then I will listen to some of the later work as well. Sometimes that does lead to me rediscovering music I almost had written off, and with Motorpsycho being as strong of a band as they are, I am almost expecting that to happen. And then there is Elysium, Soon. I will keep listening to it.
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