BLISSARD

Previous albums in the Motorpsycho lineage were experimental in direction, with songs being very jammy and less compositionally structured in a lot of ways. This fact gave the band a more D.I.Y feel to their music which I liked. However after moving to a different label after the release of The Tussler, Motorpsycho decided to create an album that experimented less of brainstorming and jamming with a focus of songwriting, composing, and working more on their newly founded Psychedelic Indie Rock sound they discovered in Timothy's Monster. As a result, we would get Blissard in 1996.

There are a lot of things I like about this album, but there are also some things I am too fond of. I will say, for starters on the things I like about this album, that album cover really does help the album a lot in my opinion. I think besides the modern trio of The Tower, The Crucible, and The All Is One (which I'll review soon), this is probably my favorite Motorpsycho album cover. The blurry image of a Mickey Mouse doll in a weirdly cropped black square with a scribble (probably a signature) on top is so jarring that the more I look at it the more I begin to love it. It gives off the perfect sense for this album, being this blurry idea that I do not even think the band would know how it'd turn out, similar to how, say, Walt Disney had the idea for Mickey Mouse in the 1920s.

The result of the more compositional effort on this album is a more structured, slightly pop sounding idea for the band to tackle, though some songs like True Middle and S.T.G are slightly out of favor with this sort of pop mythos the album creates. What I like about this is that, because of this, it is a very easy album to get into. There are a lot of hooks in each song that makes it so this record can catch your attention, whether it is with the hard pounding Sinful, Wind-Born or the expertly crafted Greener. Each song as a whole gives this accessible, but still experimental energy.

As a whole piece, I think this is the most structured, and consistent Motorpsycho album to date, with even tracks like True Middle carrying the same weight as the last song, and the song afterwards doing the same. It veers slightly away from this consistency in certain moments, but overall I think this is the most consistently crafted album Motorpsycho has ever produced.

However I think some of the charm that previous Motorpsycho albums had are lost in the consistent and compositional direction. I liked the more brainstorming work that Demon Box and Timothy's Monster provided, and such having it be lost in this record, while just for a moment, is pretty sad in my opinion. My favorite thing about Motorpsycho jamming works is that even though the band is merely improv, their sense of structure helps those songs to feel more worthwhile. Here, that sense is lost and while I think every song here (minus the last track) are very good, they do not have that Motorpsycho charm to them.

Though, I think the album has a lot more improvements than faults from their original sound. The more effective song writing, lyricism, and composition does help the band to create more profound and powerful music that they'll implement more in later releases. This album is the band's maturity album, growing more highly tuned with their newly founded sounds and styles and as a result a turning point for the band's expertly crafted career.

While I think as a try and true Motorpsycho album this is pretty weak, but as a compositional and structured effort this album is very good in what the group wanted to do. While I cannot say this is an absolute must listen for any Motorpsycho fan, it is a definitive turning point for the band that shouldn't be overlooked. Like Mickey Mouse, sometimes an experiment can be a gemstone in a rough time.