Track List

1. Melt
2. Heads Explode
3. Doomsday
4. God Says No
5. Kiss of the Scorpion
6. All Shook Out
7. Gravity Well
8. My Little Friend
9. Queen of You
10. Down in the Jungle
11. Cry
12. Take It
13. Silver Future
14. I want more

As far as I can tell there is a critical consensus that Monster Magnet made a few good druggy psychedelic albums at the star of the 90s but their records have been slick and glossy Stooges-by-numbers since. I think they even might be regarded as a bit of a joke in some quarters. I saw them a couple of years ago supporting Queens of the Stone Age and most of the crowd were scratching their heads trying to work out what the fuck was going on. Lead Singer Dave Wyndorf was wearing lace up leather trousers and a waist coat and had a fan somewhere in front of him that blew his rock star hair back as he sang. 

I checked out a few of their older records – the more acclaimed psychedelic ones and they’re ok but for some reason I never choose to play them over the later ones. The drugs are too obviously responsible for the sounds of the early records. Much better to listen to them struggling to cope without them, hearing Wyndorf in ‘Heads Explode’ for example, telling a girl to keep the drugs in her pocket while he demonstrates how to have substance free sex. 

The sound is pretty slick though and will undoubtedly put some people off. It’s much more like the remastered versions of the Stooges records than the originals and the first track ‘Heads Explode’ is ‘Search and Destroy’ note for note and ‘Doomsday’ which is probably the best track is still just a version of ‘1969’. I personally can’t think of many other records that pull this kind of noise of so compellingly though. It’s addictive valve-amp fuzzy guitar rock almost suitable for stadiums and the album just gets louder the longer it goes on. Definitely recommended for folks looking for a drinking LP.

In interviews the band did to promote the ‘God Says No’ album Wyndorf was talking a lot how he’d been trying to make an album without the use of any drugs and how most of the songs came from his experience of trying to give them up. As a consequence there is lots of visionary psychedelic stuff as well as the obligatory Blakean visions of hell; they are as guilty for ripping their metaphysics from Sabbath as their riffs from the Stooges. They do it pretty good though.

Wyndorf is a tender guy behind the make up, he’s knows the rock and roll thing is bullshit – he is constantly dismissing it as a superficial addiction ‘I wonder if I’m ill / I’ll never trust myself again / but I don’t care / Just set that plastic soul on fire / and watch it melt’ (‘Melt’) which you can imagine rehabilitation centres handing out as a case study to rock stars trying to kick their habit. It’s a bit at odds with the associations of their imagery. The title track is the same. Almost makes you feel sorry for the guy and his struggles with the divine powers good and bad. ‘I need some love just to start the show / but ask just once and God says No.’ Apparently God still wants them to suffer a bit more. Funny how conservative and religion-yearning some rock Dudes are.

In ‘Kiss of the Scorpion’ Wyndorf offers his own unique brand of salvation to the fucked up ‘It’s time you suck the cock of the fire God’. Sense of humour at last? Nope, there’s tenderness here too ‘As you drown in your pool of madness / You’re never going to be alone / That’s why I’m here’. And in ‘Cry’ its almost too much ‘Love lies in pools of questions / Love stays away from me / Love dies and there’s no question / I’m gone baby all the way gone’. 

If it wasn’t for the orchestra of Marshall stacks behind him you’d think it was a Sondheim musical.

For all the self-obession though at least MM shows signs of life and and I am convinced they are totally aware of the superficiality of mainstream rock. Beneath the stupid clothes and haircuts Monster Magnet they are a rare example of a band actually trying to take life seriously and actually have a kind of belief that rock and roll can help them sort themselves out. Just the way it used to be.