‘Deluxe’ versions of great albums often end up diluting the charms of the original artefact with their added ‘extras’. But Trondheim mavericks Motorpsycho have good reason to reissue their seminal 1993 release: although originally put out as a double vinyl album, three tracks were cut from the CD version.
It sounds all the more like a brutal edit when you listen to the three omitted tracks in their natural habitat. Gutwrench is a superbly nasty addition, all churning bass rumble and discordant vocals. Mr Who is a clattering, lo-fi excursion to planet oddball, but it adds still more beguiling strangeness to an album already heavily laced with it.
Best of all, though, is the 11-minute Mountain, whose brooding bassline and slow, prowling tempo underpin a lurching monster of a riff. Imagine The Melvins if they’d grown up in the Arctic circle, seeing no sunlight for two months of the year.
A third disc includes their EPs from that era, peppered with highlights such as the pitch-black Flesh Harrower, along with a similarly unpredictable but frequently exhilarating disc of rarities.
With a 1993 live show on the DVD, it’s a fascinating document of the pivotal period in the career of one of European rock’s true originals./o:p
