Ancient Astronauts

Album review

From 2017 through 2021, Norway's Motorpsycho recorded and released the sprawling "Gullvåg Trilogy." Consisting of 2017's double-album The Tower, 2019's The Crucible, and 2020's The All Is One (another double), all three boast stunning cover art by painter Håkon Gullvåg. The band also demo'ed material that didn't fit them. They used the COVID-19's global lockdowns to painstakingly rearrange, edit, re-record, and expand leftover tracks, emerging with 2021's Kingdom of Oblivion. Ancient Astronauts' roots lie in the pandemic. During lockdown, Motorpsycho, not content to play streaming concerts, collaborated with theater group De Utvalgte, who employed their music visually. They also accompanied Impure Dance Company performances, and audiences were deliberately kept small. Additional pieces were composed for these performances and are included here.
All four tracks were recorded live in-studio by a trio version of Motorpsycho with vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist Bent Saether, guitarist and keyboardist Hans Magnus Ryan, and drummer and backing vocalist Tomas Jämyr. Minimal overdubs were added later by the band and returning producer Helge "Deathprod" Sten. Guitarist and longtime collaborator Reine Fiske was unable to travel from Stockholm for the sessions due to COVID travel restrictions.
Opener "The Ladder" commences with Mellotron, strings, and wordless vocals before the arrival of a massive, hard-swinging guitar/bass/drum vamp owing equally to Grand Hotel-era Procol Harum and Lizard-period King Crimson. At over six-and-a-half minutes, it crackles and sprawls with spiky guitar solos, thudding snares and cymbals, and a bass throb underscored by keyboards. At just over two minutes, "The Flower of Awareness" consists of controlled industrial feedback and rumbling, low-end drones before segueing into "Mona Lisa Azreal," whose Mellotron intro -- buoyed by restrained snares, kick drums, a crystalline bassline, and fingerpicked electric guitars -- frames Saether's resonant vocal. It sounds like an outtake from In the Court of the Crimson King. Mellotron and glockenspiel introduce a languid interlude before Motorpsycho ratchet up the energy into a driving, kinetic, prog jam complete with bass and guitar explosions. Ryan loses it during his seemingly endless, stratospheric guitar freakout. At nine minutes, a filthy bassline, hi-hat, and Mellotron ratchet the progression into musical drama before a crescendo that erupts, hovers, and eventually segues into the 22-minute closer "Chariots of the Sun: To Phaeton on the Occasion of the Sunrise (Theme from an Imagined Movie)." A sprawling instrumental in the same league as Rush's "Book II: Hemispheres," it travels a long, sinuous path from wiry prog to thunderous hard rock and alt metal grooves with labyrinthine dynamics, complex sonic textures, and episodic movement. The gentler opening develops gradually before the pace quickens. Its many transitions are seamless and precise, adding frenetic energy, power, and focus as it unfurls. No matter how far afield this obsessive adventure travels, it remains compellingly listenable, and Motorpsycho never lose the plot. Though composed and demo'ed in disparate, less than ideal circumstances, Ancient Astronauts is remarkably holistic in its execution, revealing the band's arrival at yet another creative peak.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo