I’m 15 Again. Thanks, Motorpsycho.

By JASON HARPER

Highlights from the life of an unapologetic rock fan:

I. Age 15, Led Zeppelin IV, Dark Side of the Moon.

II. Age 29, Little Lucid Moments

Coming of age in the ’90s, I was not particularly hip or schooled in the cool underground music of that decade or the one before, but I was pretty sure of one thing: the ’70s had way better music. I also knew the electric guitar was the finest instrument ever invented. In the right hands, even better than the human voice, but only narrowly better than the thunderous, crackly, apeshit bass guitar on those early-70s King Crimson albums.

I wouldn’t even be thinking about this shit today if it weren’t for the discovery of a wholly mindblowing album of gorgeous, aggressive, and, yes, progressive, rock from an heretofore-unheard-of Norwegian (and we’re talking Trondheim, which is, I don’t even know where) band called Motorpsycho.

Unlike most of the buzz bands lighting up the blogs these days, Motorpsycho has been around for nearly 20 years, according to wikipedia. I discovered them via this Euro bootleg listening site, where, as of now (but not for long!), you can stream the fanfuckingtastic Moments in its entirety.

Apparently the group used to have more of a modern metal sound, as evidenced by this MP3 I found on the Metal Bastard’s blog via the Hype Machine, which, sadly, yielded no downloads from Moments or anything very recent. This song definitely finds the group sounding more like their name.

MP3: Motorpsycho, “Seether” from the long-lost 1996 album The Return of Jesus, Part II

One last thing: There’s a 2002 concert of the band viewable at Fabchannel.com . Go there, click on “Concerts” and scroll down, or search, or whatever. I’m 45 minutes into it, and they’ve already roared through dynamic, inspired rock that’s more daring and more melodic than most things you’ll hear on the radio right now — and that includes a ton of songs by classic rock acts like … well, the ones that ruled us when we were 15.

For the Hammer of the Gods’ sake, check it out.