TIMOTHY'S MONSTER

"Timothy's Monster" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Norwegian hard/psychadelic rock act Motorpsycho. The album was released through Stickman Records (Europe)/Harvest/EMI (Norway) in August 1994. "Timothy's Monster" is a double album release, featuring 15 tracks and a full playing time of 1 hour and 49:06 minutes.

So there is arguably a lot of quantity for the money. Stylistically Motorpsycho continue their musical journey from alternative rock/metal act to alternative/psychadelic rock act with occasional harder edged rock leanings. Most of the 11 tracks on disc 1 are alternative in nature and for the most part vers/chorus structured. They are not particularly memorable, but not bad either. It´s the longer tracks and especially the 16:57 minutes long "The Wheel" from disc 2, that are most interesting. That´s also the tracks where the group´s psychadelic side is heard the most.

"Timothy's Monster" features a decent sound production, but it could have prospered from a more warm and organic tone. So while "Timothy's Monster" is as such an alright listen, there are also things that frustrate me a bit about it. Motorpsycho simply don´t seem to know what they want on this album and as a consequence it´s stylistically inconsistent. That might suit some listeners, but for such a long album to run in so many different directions it ends up being a slightly confusing listen. The heavy fuzzy bass tone is another odd feature on the album. It´s as such great with a heavy distorted bass, but it´s sometimes placed in some sections where it doesn´t seem to belong. Bent Saether´s strained vocal delivery and unmemorable vocal lines don´t exactly make things better.

As mentioned there are some pretty great material on "Timothy's Monster" too though, and those tracks actually do make up for some of the odd choices the band have made on the album. I can mention "The Wheel" enough as the highlight of the album with it´s hypnotic, heavy, and repetitive beat and psychadelic vocals and effects, but "The Golden Core" and "Giftland" (which are the other two long tracks on the album) are also standout tracks to my ears. "Grindstone" is another track that´s a bit different from the rest of the material on the album as it´s a pretty noisy and almost metal type track. It´s not a particularly great track though and features some pretty annoying noisy closing couple of minutes.

While neither "Lobotomizer (1991)" nor "Demon Box (1993)" exactly made my blood boil, at least both of them had some really good tracks and some decent filler. On "Timothy's Monster" the great tracks are few and the amount of filler too high. I think I´m stretching with a 3 star (60%) rating.