Night Motor 
Vessels (Self Released) CD/DL/ST
Released: 29th April, 2024
Night Motor take a walk on the darker side for their second album.
Night Motor released their debut album, Fatal (reviewed here) in 2021. It was a blistering post punk garage record. Three years later and the band have been through several line-up changes and personal issues, that have influenced their latest release. For Vessels is a much darker affair than Fatal, not just flirting with the 80s goth sound and dark wave, but getting down and dirty with it. Pleasures For The Living, is gothic doom, with hints of Magazine. The guitar wails and scratches like a psychotic neurosis. It’s a soundtrack to a haunted house. I’m Never Coming Down Again has epic heavy keyboards and a real goth vibe that reminds me of Lowlife. It’s a slow build and darkness, death and despair are all mentioned in the first verse! It’s a great track. And The Never Healing Wound is an atmospheric song drenched in dry ice and portentous lyrics, that are expounded in a more thoughtful, less shouty, way.
But Night Motor show they can still knock out straight garage rock with the best of them, on tracks like Novocaine, which hurtles along with urgency, and Do You Think You Can Die From a Broken Heart, with a heavy garage guitar sound, more akin to the 60s than the 80s.
Karma has a funky electronic beat with the lyrics classic garage rock B Movie shtick, whilst Dirty Mouth, with a cool bass line and McGeoch style guitar, channels the late Mark E. Smith in paranoic visions. There are grander visions on Salvation and Bleeding Out, which have hints of Echo and the Bunnymen.
We reviewed lead off single, Don’t Wanna Be Saved, here. It’s a song about a friend being out of reach and is part of the trauma that the band have been through since their first album was released. There is clear maturity and nuance on this album compared to the blistering debut. Vessels is delivered with passion and subtlety, power and vulnerability. Let’s hope it brings them some good times.
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You can find Night Motor online here, Facebook, Instagram and Bandcamp.
All words by Mark Ray. More writing by Mark Ray can be found at his author archive. And he can be found on X, Instagram and WordPress
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