To my utter surprise and delight, earlier today Motorama nonchalantly released their new LP Before the Road on bandcamp. The Russian post-punk / new wave group is notorious for rarely explaining their tracks or doing interviews – they’ve simply stated in the past that “our band is 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s Soviet rock and new wave music, but in English,” and honestly, that’s good enough for me. But while they claim their lyrics are reportedly only inspired by the weather in Rostov-on-Don and hate talking about it in any other context, they still thankfully include them – since their debut album, their narratives always seem to have embedded in them a sense of brightness and prophetic sentimentality despite the hazy, darkened instrumentals and somber synth. I was originally writing this post for their single “Pole Star,” which was released last week, but now that I have gotten the chance to listen to Before the Road in full, I feel I have no choice but to turn this into a miniature review, or at least, talk about a few tracks on this gorgeous album – it would be disservice to talk about just one.
“Pole Star” is perhaps the most dynamically upbeat of the seven tracks on the album, and, almost, I want to say, the sister track to Poverty’s “Red Drop.” Partially inspired by the perpetual existence of the North Pole star, whose “shine will never end,” the track is delicately laced with ingrained longing, the evocative, textured guitars and stable percussion bringing it all to life by the chorus. But while the star is a source of light and hope, it is not a complete deus ex machina – the track ultimately points to employing one’s own innate resilience to get back to where you once were, to push against the “depth of ice mirrors,” to persevere despite being ensconced in the wind and cold. It perhaps goes without saying that the star seems to be a metaphor for something more enamored in tone – “it will bring us together through the snow and storm” frontman Vladislav Parshin croons, “it will bring us together on our long road home.”
Stars are a constant symbol throughout the album – they’re blissfully aligned in the full, robust “Voyage,” they seem to disappear completely in the heartsick “Sailor’s Song.” The star begins bright and slowly dims – the opening of “Up,” one track away from the album’s close, sounds like the bits and pieces of this star falling down to Earth, hinting at a landscape scarred by apocalypse, but tinged with gasps of rebirth as well – Parshin explains that there are “falling stars and meteors / spheres, spaces, and black holes” around him, but though the “smell of cosmos is all around,” “something new is about to come.” His voice is strangely hopeful amidst the scintillating synth, turning atmospheric by track’s end, reaching something akin to catharsis.
Closer “Little Mystery,” then, is the gorgeous introspective aftermath of such intense catharsis, where Parshin realistically ruminates on “achievable goals, unreachable dreams.” This apocalypse and rebirth is destined to happen over and over again in an unbreakable ouroboros – “icons and symbols / romantic ideals / they disappear and reappear.” And yet, given the smooth, almost saxophone-like synth and Parshin’s soft, patient vocals, this doesn’t sound like a dismal future – it is gloom, but it is painted on with a gentle hand.
Before the Road is out now.
P
photo courtesy of artist
kid with a vinyl 