by Ljubinko Zivkovic (@zivljub)
If Toronto’s Motorists picked up their band name as to somehow connect their music with that brilliant sub-genre of krautrock that got branded as motorik, they are certainly on the right track. Or maybe we should say, on the right (autobahn) lane, which indicates the sounds they present us on their full-length debut, Surrounded. Yet the things are not that simple, or complicated if you will. Craig Fahner, Matt Learoyd, and Jesse Locke seem to have added something that many punk/post-punk/new wave bands that cropped up in the late seventies/early eighties have picked up from krautrock/motorik and have adapted it here for the modern times.
Like The Fall or The Modern Lovers era Jonathan Richman, Motorists rely on the guitars as their driving wheels, adding that dose of The Velvet Underground as can be heard in “Vainglorious”. Similarly to Mark E. Smith or Richman, Motorists’ lyrics are rooted firmly in what they saw/heard/felt at the very moment. It could show the darker side, as in the title track, or a bit of the lighter side, as in rhythmically-nuanced “Hidden Hands” (The Feelies “Strange Rhythms” easily comes to mind here) or “Through You”.
Still, with all the influences floating around on Surrounded, Motorists themselves do not simply surround themselves in more familiar sounds but successfully tie them into something that shows an open road to their own personality.