MOTORPSYCHO PRESENTS THE INTERNATIONAL TUSSLER SOCIETY

Back in the 90's, when Motorpsycho was experimenting with it's sound, the main members of the band decided to try their hands at alt-country-rock and did it in the guise of another band performing music for a soundtrack to an imaginary western. It ended up getting a completely separate life of it's own in Europe, so much so, that the band decided to do another album in 2004. That is what this particular album is: "The International Tussler Society". This time around, Motorpsycho and friends is even more convincing than the previous attempt, and what they ended up with is this very respectable southern rock style album that pays homage to bands like The Byrds, The Allman Brothers and Gram Parsons just to name a few. This time around, they hit the style right on the nose and could have easily continued playing incognito and earned quite a decent amount of respect in the Americas.

This is a very fun album and quite an excellent bunch of songs that will make you almost swear you are listening to new music from the aforementioned bands and artists. A word of warning, however. This is not progressive music in the least, so you need to go into this album with that in mind. It is straightforward country rock at it's best. If this wasn't a progressive site, I would have given this album 5 stars easily. There are some really great tracks here, especially when they allow the guitars to run wild with southern-style jamming, which happens quite often here. "September" and "Satan's Favorite Son" are excellent multi-textured tracks that will bring back memories of earlier and more exploratory country rock, "That Ol' White Line" and "When We Were One" will remind you of Gram Parson's era The Byrds and also Buffalo Springfield, and best of all, "The Skies Are Full of....Wine?", "The West Ain't What it Used to Be" and "Cassie (Call on Me" would easily pass as music The Allman Brothers would perform.

It may seem strange that a psych/stoner/prog band like Motorpsycho would be able to convincingly pull this off, especially since they don't even come from anywhere in the Americas, and since this is so far away from the music they normally play under their usual moniker, but they do pull it off quite well, enough to give this a four star rating even on a prog site. Of course, Motorpsycho fans will still rant and rave about it because it is so well done, but if more people would expand their music tastes beyond their own borders, there would be a lot more fans out there. This is a very fun album, and also a very entertaining one too. Besides, prog giant Devin Townsend also did this and also did it quite well with his side band "Casualties of Cool", so why can't a great band as Motopsycho be able to do it too? (They actually did it before Hevy Devy). Anyway, this one is a lot of fun and is easily a four star album, even in a prog site.