BLISSARD

After the double extravaganza Timothy's Monster, Motorpsycho switched label from Harvest/EMI (ring any bells?) to Sony/Columbia where they would stay the next 10 years. The first release on Sony was Blissard, which was a more "written" and arranged record than they'd ever done before. Sonic Youth is an obvious source of inspiration, along with Hawkwind and other hard rock bands.

The first half of the album is probably the tightest and most focused row of songs that MP has ever written. Solid riffs, at times beautiful guitar interplay and some pretty damn melodic hooks as well.

The second half on the other hand is much more experimental. True Middle is an instrumental jam with American poet Matt Burt reciting a poem over it. S.T.G is the 10 minute hard rock epic that has a solid beginning/bridge, then turns into a noise fest for half a minute, before calming waaaay down for the proggy/psychedelic outro. It segues into Manmower which is even proggier and more mellow with mellotrons and piano. These two tracks easily make for the best 15 minutes of the record. Then, unfortunately, it falls apart for the last two songs: Fools Gold is an acoustic driven ballad with banjo, but recorded on a shitty 4-track somewhere in Germany. And the closer is basically an ambient track written and conceived by their former member/co-producer Deathprod. Nothing to do with MP what-so-ever.

So the big picture is spoiled by the non-descript ending of the record. I'd give it 3.5 stars, but PA doesn't have half stars :D The album even starts with an instrumental keyboard-jam that you actually have to rewind your CD (!) to be able to hear. But it's nothing special at all, so I'll have to give it 3 stars then.