Motorpsycho
Blissard

Blurred yellow to encrypt the smile. Schizophrenic lines to imprint even on a cover the unpredictable and dazzling bursts of an immense album, perhaps never praised enough, certainly little discussed in the most suitable terms in this space. And precisely because of the other more poetic rather than analytical review of the work, my desire to talk with you about sounds, melodies and interweavings that make this "Psychobabble 003", now 12 years distant, one of the indie rock milestones of the nineties along with the slightly older Timothy's Monster, grows. The differences on the level of "production" between these two albums, despite being only two years apart, are clear. If Timothy's was a cascade of vibrating cords amassed but devastating for warmth, spontaneity, and inspiration, Blissard deviates from the above for its more granite, sharp form, and without neglecting the psychedelia, the three still remind us what it means to interlock guitars, bass, and voices today.

The first track, Sinful, Wind-borne, is a summary of their creative vein of the period. This piece, which within itself offers moments of such intensity that I remain motionless at every listen because nothing else needs to be done when everything is already there. Here we travel in the light, we are dragged by a chilling rhythmic session and by melodies intertwining with each other, trapping and freeing the listener in rapid succession from anxious to more sunny moments, expressing themselves at such high levels of taste and arrangement that even sacred monsters like Sonic Youth would be left speechless (a band that may have influenced the three from Trondheim, but over time taught just as much to future generations).

Blissard for the first part of the disc provides no breaks, and Drug Thing further ups the ante with its four minutes of breathtaking frenzy that make the hands of the three Motorpsycho move like those of pianists under the influence of acid. Every strike is delivered and reaches our ears to make us run with our eyes closed, colliding without feeling pain in the sudden changes that this track performs.
Drug Thing, thanks also to its extraordinary start,  remains one of those tracks capable of increasing my heartbeat, perhaps just to approach theirs, absolutely breathtaking.
Slow, acidic and grating Greener follows, where Snah makes his vocal debut. With transitions from massive to faint just to catch one's breath, Greener makes guitars whistle and crack Gebhardt's crashes in the six minutes of its dark and melancholic explosions.
An eerie voice opens "'s numbness", the fourth piece of the disc. Here our band, after the blows inflicted by Snah's guitar and Gebhardt's drums, open with a voice-guitar loop so dissonant that it turns harmonious (...paradoxes huh?) and shortly after the intrusion of Bent's bass puts the piece on a precise track, where a harmless little keyboard is enough to delineate the most significant moment.
Crank the volume of the piece in question to understand what I tried to describe. 

We reach perhaps the most refined and exciting track of the album: The Nerve Tattoo.
Bent's distorted bass, two guitar notes and a rhythm that pushes from the first beat to then open (thanks to the splendid strings) towards much warmer landscapes than their homeland. Blinding, blurred, sweet The Nerve Tattoo, which transports, cradles and shakes until a collision of sound waves, strings, and anything that emits a scream without having a voice.
True Middle is the pause, or if you will, the turning point of the album towards a more psychedelic and hypnotic second part that calms the storm (or at least partially), but still comes to reveal once again their inclination for the dark that infects most of their works of that period, always inspired by the harder, rawer, and hallucinogenic facade of 70s rock.
The sublime example is S.T.G. (Sonic teenage Guinevere), a monumental track that for almost ten minutes reaches straight to the heart. A calm start, with a simply fantastic guitar/bass crescendo, up to the moment of emerging to unleash all their Hard Rock attitude in Grand Funk Railroad style. Here Snah explores the territories dearest to him, ranging from the aforementioned "seventy sounds" to the acid guitars in Dinosaur Jr style. Live, the track is still performed today with the same freshness with which it was proposed years ago, and seeing them move in sync to mark the leading riff breaks with raised guitar and bass is really enjoyable and fun. And as I write, S.T.G. continues its psychoacid ride until collapsing to the ground exhausted, using the remaining strength for an exciting finale, powerful even if 1000 decibels below the heart of the song.

Manmower, a track that starts along with Fools Gold to offer the last moments of the disc (the softer ones), is a shy bora that touches me, making me reflect on how music has the ability to instill joy even with decadent, non-sunny melodies.
The last six minutes of Blissard are the work of DeathProd, an element always an integral part of the band even without showing its face. Here, talking about psychedelia is as obvious as it is reductive. Better to listen to it, live it, turning off the lights, lying on the floor, closing your eyes and, why not, staying alone. 

Memorable album that I will never tire of dusting off, loving, making known to people who perhaps today only know Motorpsycho's latest productions, light-years different from this even if with the same desire to make music, the kind that comes from the stomach, the immortal kind, the kind they made their own and that no one has ever managed to reproduce with the same poetry.