Moron Police – Pachinko

Progressive Rock

93%

 

Thinking back on the best and most memorable albums of recent years, it strikes me that they broadly tend to fit into one of two categories. The first, and most prevalent, are those records that are just an extremely fun and engaging listen. Wall to wall bangers, one earworm hook after another, most every track able to get you up singing, or dancing, or air-guitaring. Albums so locked in that they play like a greatest hits record. The second category belongs to those records which aim to delve deeper. Sometimes that involves songs that touch on complex themes designed to make you think, but more often it’s about artists pouring their heart out into the music they make. Laying bare all their pain, grief, loss, anger, and emptiness, for all the world to hear. 

To say that this latest album from Norwegian Prog outfit Moron Police nails the assignment for that first category would be an understatement. I can’t recall when I last heard an album this vibrant, effervescent, and life-affirming. The mellow piano intro of opening track ‘Nothing Breaks (A Port of Call)’ gives you a brief moment to brace yourself for the wild ride ahead, before exploding into a kinetic, kaleidoscopic rollercoaster of a record. It does a superb job setting your expectations for what lies ahead: relentless manic energy, bright and colourful soundscapes that feel like stepping into another world, a seemingly bottomless well of soaring, dreamy hooks. For most bands this would be a high water mark, but for Moron Police this is just the baseline – things somehow get weirder and more wondrous from here on out. 

‘Alfredo and the Afterlife’ dives into jazz fusion territory in the vein of Thank You Scientist, ‘Waiting For You’ is home to a simply gorgeous Plini style guitar solo, while the pairing of ascendant strings and heavy blast beats at the climax of ‘Cormorant’ feels like textbook Devin Townsend. The opening riff of ‘Pachinko, pt. 2’ reminds me of Six Degrees era Dream Theater, before the song takes a few brief detours into a zany and cartoonish style akin to Haken at their most outlandish. Pachinko finds Moron Police operating at the standard of some of their best prog peers, while keeping their own unique whimsical identity intact. Frankly an album that’s this earnestly weird and eccentric (even by prog standards) has no right to also be so accessible and radio-friendly too. While there’s a ton of intricate musicianship at work here, it always feels fun and playful.

There are delightful flashes of retro synth sounds that feel like being being sucked into an N64 game. The double whammy of shimmering synths straight into a soaring sax solo on album highlight ‘King Among Kittens’ is one of the most gloriously euphoric music moments of 2025. ‘Waiting For You’ and ‘Take Me To The City’ are packed to the brim with infectious melodies and earworm hooks. So too surprisingly is the epic centrepiece ‘Pachinko, Pt. 1’, which keeps going on outlandish tangents before pulling yet another wickedly addictive hook out of thin air like it’s nothing. Frontman Sondre Skollevoll’s vocals somehow feel so effortlessly uplifting and engaging, like that one friend who’s smile always brightens your day. Not everything the album throws at you will stick the landing – mileage will vary depending on your tolerance for the more unhinged moments – but for the most part the record is a joyous burst of colour from start to finish. 

Pachinko is a concept album that tells the story of a man who gets transformed into the titular Japanese arcade machine. If you’re wondering why I’ve neglected to mention this delightful nugget of information until now, it’s because it falls into the Mars Volta camp of concept albums where even with the best will in the world it’s nigh impossible to piece together the “story”. There are plenty of recurring lyrical themes and returning leitmotifs, which I’m an absolute sucker for, but while I’d love to devote many hours of my time to decoding their meaning, I’m not sure I’d make much progress. There is however a second, more powerful unifying thread running through Pachinko; one that the record wears proudly on its sleeve. 

At it’s heart, this record is Moron Police’s love letter to their dearly missed friend and drummer Thore Pettersen, who passed away in 2022. Tucked between the album’s buoyant arrangements and fantastical concept, lies some of the most profoundly beautiful eulogising I’ve ever heard. Both ‘Cormorant’ (“And I miss you like those summers where the wind would lift us up, Though time will mark your passing, There are things it cannot stop“) and the dreamy synthpop of ‘Okinawa Sky’ (“What am I supposed to do now that my friend is gone? In the end, I always stood upon his shoulders, Feels like I’m running the same routine on and on, And my music without him just feels wrong, But there’s a need to carry on“) contain a truly heartrending outpouring and love and grief. Thore’s memory is woven into Pachinko, even to the point where it’s his drum outro that closes the album on final track ‘Giving Up the Ghost’. I have to give props to guest drummer Billy Rymer here too. Not only does he bring incredible energy and complexity to the record, but I can only imagine how daunting it must have been to step up to the kit in the first place. 

Within ‘Giving Up the Ghost’ there’s a line that I feel sums up Pachinko perfectly: “I never knew life would be such an adventure, but you made it so, When the Devil turned me into a penny dispenser, in Tokyo“. The heartfelt and the absurd working alongside each other in perfect tandem. To me, Pachinko expertly embodies both the aforementioned categories of great records. It manages to be an uplifting, anthemic, balls-to-the-wall adventure, that will leave you grinning from ear to ear, while also being one of the most eloquent and heartfelt reflections on loss ever put to music. “A ghost can live a lifetime trapped in song“. What better legacy is there to leave for a loved one, than in forever tying their memory to a piece of art that brings such joy and happiness to all who hear it.