Review Summary: I need some coffee.
Phase 7: Approaching the Jazz
Part 1: Let them Eat Cake
After the grandiose "Trust Us", things changed. First of all, a new century started. And on the other hand the three motorpsychos probably sat together in a room one fateful night and said: "Hey, let's make some jazz influenced music! I mean, it just isn't radically different than anything else we have done before!".
Yeah. Well, but from that point on, the three made their way back into the studio to record some tunes. And these would shock the whole Motorpsycho community.
The biggest change in sound on this album are definitely the overdubs. There are so many instruments on some of the tracks it just gets difficult to count. They included nearly a whole orchestra on the album! Next change were the songs itself. Like said before, the songs had a more jazz- and pop-vibe to them rather than the heavy indie-guitars they became popular for. Needless to say, the fanbase was perplexed. Could this combination work? Had Motorpsycho lost their original sound?
Well, yes and no. While the songs on here are unlike everything else they had ever written before, it was most certainly still Motorpsycho. Their talent for awesome melodies still shines through, their musicianship was top-notch as always and they still couldn't sing that well.
But now about the songs. The variety on here is stunning. We get a pocket symphony (The Other Fool), laid-back jazz songs (Upstairs - Downstairs), fun party rockers (Walkin' with J.), just plain epic songs (30/30, which was so epic, I wanted it to do a FATALITY! on my mp3- and cd-player) and so on. And again they prove that songs don't necessarily have to be what they sound like in the first place with "Whip That Ghost (A Song For a Bro)", which is a hommage to the Allman Brothers and starts out with a bass riff that makes you believe it's going to be a hard rocking song but morphs into a jazz-jamsession. No song on here is a stinker, which means you're most likely to put the album on and on again, which you should, because there are many awesome details that you don't get on the first listen
This album will make you smile, it doesn't matter which mood you had before. It's one of the happiest albums I ever listened to and also one of the most optimistic. This here will please anybody from rockers to jazzfans to popfans. This is recommended highly to any fan of music. You won't be disappointed.
Recommended Downloads:
"The Other Fool" and "Walkin' with J.", because they are the best representations of the albums sound than anything else.
