Just when you think you’ve heard enough Motorpsycho albums for one lifetime, these Norwegian psych veterans drop another record that pulls you right back into their fuzz-drenched orbit. 

While most veteran bands slow down, the psychedelic rock institution Motorpsycho seems to accelerate, delivering record after record, year after year, with little sign of creative fatigue. The world is undoubtedly a better place with Motorpsycho around, but do we really need to keep buying their records, and I mean, all of them? At their current pace, it’s inevitable that not every album will resonate. Yay! (2023) and its leftovers on Neigh!! (2024) were very “meh” to me and even caused me to skip last year’s self-titled progressive sprawl entirely. For about the fourth time in my life I thought I had heard enough Motorpsycho. But who am I kidding, right? Once a Psychonaut, always a Psychonaut.

At just over thirty-five minutes, The Gaia II Space Corps is unusually concise for a band known for twenty-minute epics and sprawling conceptual arcs. That alone was enough to spark my interest again, especially combined with the promise that Motorpsycho were stripping things back to the roots of heavy psychedelic rock. The band described the album as “post-psychedelic” and “pre-metal.” This could mean almost anything given Sæther and Snah’s tendency to troll fans with marketing slogans. Yet after the first spin, the description proves surprisingly accurate.

Opening track Fanny Again, Or? sets the tone immediately. Built around a blunt riff and a straightforward groove, the song leans heavily on the classic Motorpsycho formula of heavy bass lines and fuzzy guitar interplay. It is direct, energetic and undeniably fun, though perhaps a little too comfortable in its retro aesthetic. While the performance is spirited, the track occasionally feels more like an homage to vintage heavy rock than a fresh reinterpretation of it.

A stronger impression is made by TSMcR, one of the album’s heavier highlights. The track dives deep into blues-psych territory, driven by thick guitar tones and hypnotic rhythms. This momentum carries over into The Hornet, which barrels ahead with a boogie-rock pulse that feels both loose and purposeful. On these tracks the band sound fully engaged, balancing heaviness and psychedelia in a way that recalls the exploratory spirit of albums like 2010’s Heavy Metal Fruit.

The title track acts as the album’s conceptual centerpiece. With its steady groove, swirling guitars and cosmic lyrical imagery, it taps directly into Motorpsycho’s long-standing fascination with space-age mythology and psychedelic escapism. After all this riff-heavy energy, The Oracle offers the album’s most atmospheric moment. Slower and more spacious, it briefly reconnects the band with the expansive psychedelic mood that has defined many of their strongest works. The album closes with Black As Night, a cover originally recorded by the ’60s psych group The Frost. Motorpsycho approach the song with obvious enthusiasm, delivering it with enough grit and valour to make it feel like a natural extension of their own material.

For all its strengths, The Gaia II Space Corps ultimately feels like a record caught between two impulses. On one hand, its stripped-down, riff-heavy approach is refreshing after the progressive excursions that dominated much of the band’s output in the past decade. On the other hand, the album’s heavy reliance on vintage rock also makes it sound more nostalgic than exploratory. Motorpsycho built their reputation on fearless experimentation, and here they seem content to celebrate the sounds that inspired them rather than push the boundaries further.

That said, the neighbouring fellows of Hällas have built an entire career around this retro approach and that has worked out pretty, pretty well for them. This 26th Motorpsycho release, depending on how you count, is therefore far from without charm. The performances are tight, the production captures a warm analog feel, and the band’s chemistry remains as strong as ever. The Gaia II Space Corps is unlikely to rank among Motorpsycho’s most essential works but you can still hear a band that simply wants to plug in, turn up the volume and ride a riff into orbit.

Label: Det Nordenfjeldske, 2026

Buy it here: https://www.nfgs.no/motorpsycho-the-gaia-ii-space-corps/

Tracklist: 

1. Fanny Again, Or (3:19)
2. The Great Stash Robbery (6:16)
3. TSMcR (4:48)
4. The Hornet (4:13)
5. The Gaia II Space Corps (4:44)
6. The Oracle (7:07)
7. Black as Night (5:54)

Line-up:

• Hans Magnus “Snah” Ryan – Electric lead & rhythm guitars, slide guitar, gong, lead vocals.
• Bent Sæther – Acoustic & electric rhythm guitars, mellotron, bass, background vocals, synthesizer, percussion.
• Reine Fiske – Lead & rhythm guitar, background vocals.
• Olaf Olsen – Drums

Review by Wander Meulemans // 130326