Monster Magnet Albums (8)
What The Critics Say
The longtime mustachioed leader of Monster Magnet, Dave Wyndorf, is pretty darn lucky to be alive, as he nearly succumbed to a drug overdose in early 2006. But he's made a full recovery, and has returned to the driver's seat for the group's seventh full-length overall, 2007's 4-Way Diablo. While known primarily as a molar-rattling biker metal band to many, ol' Wyndorf has never covered up his admiration of garage rock and psychedelia -- but kicking off a Monster Magnet album with a track that oozes lava lamps and paisley (the title track) is a bit unsuspected. But have no fear, the trademark Monster Magnet roar soon reappears, as evidenced by such good old-fashioned ass kickers as "Wall of Fire" and "You're Alive." However, the group refuses to get one-dimensional, as evidenced by a trippy cover of the Rolling Stones obscurity "2000 Lightyears from Home," as well as tracks that would sound dandy to those who like to live in an "altered state" -- especially "Freeze and Pixelate." Much to the delight of concerned longtime fans, 4-Way Diablo signals a strong return to form for a band that came very close to being cut short. ~ Greg Prato, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
"Wyndorfian" is the only appropriate phrase to use when describing the rawk machine that is Monster Magnet. Yes, lead Magneteer Dave Wyndorf is worthy of his own descriptive, his impeccable songwriting skills truly standing on their own crater-pecked asteroid in the music-biz cosmos. So it goes with Monolithic Baby!, which marks a couple of superficial transitions for Monster Magnet -- off a major and back to an indie; new rhythm section (Jim Baglino on bass and Bob Pantella on drums) -- but still upholds Wyndorf's highly entertaining mass of contradictions and vices. Simultaneously whip-smart and cementhead-stupid, smirking and sincere, he can challenge your intellect with an inspired arrangement or pseudo-political left-field lyric, then bash you over the head with a fat, greasy guitar riff; such is his genius. While Wyndorf's earlier endeavors were psychedelic dope dreams, he would eventually kick the hard stuff for a new addictive: sex. So it's no surprise that Monolithic Baby! kicks off with four smarmy-charm, crotch-thrusting musical metaphors for the horizontal mambo in "Slut Machine," "Supercruel," "Unbroken (Hotel Baby)," and especially "On the Verge," which counteracts a nudge-nudge-wink-wink doomsayer lyric ("Take me Jesus, take me Allah, rape me in my room/Torch our days in paranoia while we gorge ourselves on gloom") with a propulsive arrangement that explodes with climactic fury. The air-guitar heaven continues with "Radiation Day," which could have been cribbed from Black Sabbath's Master of Reality, and "Monolithic," which is constructed on an appropriately ugly, clubfooted fuzz-bass riff. His worship of all things Detroit continues with "The Right Stuff," a nod to the MC5 boasting a scruffy, two-chord pre-punk riff, and "There's No Way Out" offers a Bob Seger-like, dusty '70s AM radio strum and chorus. But fans of Monster Magnet's space rock origins will revel in Monolithic Baby!'s pièce de résistance, "Ultimate Everything," seven and a half minutes of psychedelic wastoid thunder: its stomping, rhythmic trudge sounds flogged by cloven-hoofed beasts while Wyndorf wails, "Lookin' up at the big sky, what do I see, a thousand years of bullsh*t comin' down on me!" and guitar solos flame out amidst a swirling whirlpool of acid-trip reality-escape. In other words, Wyndorf shows no signs of slowing down as he pilots Monster Magnet across the cosmos and straight into Satan's lap, the whole time binging on pills and pussy and paranoia. Monolithic? No argument there, Wyndorf following up his titular boasts with yet another collection of undeniably Wyndorfian tunes. [The U.S. version of Monolithic Baby! featured two bonus tracks: "King of Mars 2004," a re-recording of a track from 1995's Dopes to Infinity, and a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs." A limited-edition version came packaged with a bonus DVD boasting two promo videos and live and interview footage.] ~ John Serba, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Like other bands credited with pioneering the stoner metal scene in the early '90s, Monster Magnet continue to drift further and further from the trademark sonic characteristics (distortion, psychedelics, space rock) of the genre they helped create. And after stripping down their sound to a no-frills, streamlined attack on 1998's breakthrough album Powertrip, band leader Dave Wyndorf refused to sit on his laurels when it came time to devise Magnet's fifth album, God Says No. Instead, in a display of massive creative "cojones" and/or utter commercial suicide, Wyndorf leads the group into unexplored territory, and even seems to be having a little fun with it along the way (his sex-drenched lyrical acid-trip fantasies remain as entertaining as ever). The result being that while Powertrip's single-minded urgency and unbridled power seemed to trap the listener behind the wheel of a drag racer on the verge of flaming out, God Says No is arguably the band's mellowest set yet, and certainly their most diverse. With their laid-back grooves and unexpected use of triggered electronic drumbeats, the title track and "Queen of You" are the best examples of this turn of events. And even when they do pick up the pace a bit, tracks like "Silver Future" (also featured on the previous year's Heavy Metal 2000 soundtrack) and the amphetamine surf rock of "Kiss of the Scorpion" never quite lose control on the scale of Powertrip's Stooges-fueled recklessness. Elsewhere, bizarre experiments like "Take It" (featuring synthetic melodies set to karaoke-like drum machine rhythms) and "Gravity Well" (a distorted piece of Delta blues slide guitar topped with Wyndorf's lascivious innuendoes) push the band's creative envelope to the bursting point. Older fans and recent converts alike may prefer the album's second half, where at least some of Magnet's lo-fi, fuzzed-out past and Powertrip's raw, unyielding sonic attack finally surface on tracks like "My Little Friend" and "Medicine" (originally featured on the band's Spine of God album, re-recorded here). But new converts will get to savor all the band's flavors, including space rock anthems like "Melt" and "Cry," which hearken back to 1995's Dopes to Infinity with their familiar-sounding hypnotic riffs. In the end, some may be disappointed by God Says No's all-around sense of restraint, but open-minded fans will have to acknowledge Wyndorf's courageous insistence on breaking new ground with his continually inspired songwriting. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Whether it was the fact that the stars were in the right place, the co-production help of Matt Hyde, the well-seasoned, ready-for-anything skill of the band as a whole, or just the logical consequence of Dave Wyndorf's increasing ability to match radio hooks with squalling power, Powertrip brought it all together for Monster Magnet in a big way. Happily, nothing that made the band what they were -- Hawkwind-styled space rock scope and heavy metal intensity, not to mention the serious fun evident in everything from artwork to song titles ("Baby Gotterdammerung," "Goliath and the Vampires," "3rd Eye Landslide") -- went missing. But the sheer pump-your-fist-and-scream strength of the group had never been stronger, evident in everything from the cataclysmic guitar solo and instrumental break on the opening "Crop Circle" to the Zen-stomp-from-Olympus build of "Atomic Clock." There's the least amount of lost-in-the-stratosphere echo yet in the band's career -- the emphasis is on direct sludge-monster crushing, which helps make songs like "Bummer" the psychotically stoned numbers they are. Wyndorf's singing is higher up in the mix as well, providing a good contrast to what hazier moments there are, while moments of relative musical restraint like "Baby Gotterdammerung" still feel like sonic bombs are about to go off everywhere. The knack the whole band has shown in the past for playing beyond expected norms serves them very well. The single "Space Lord" starts on the acid folk tip, slowly but surely ratcheting up the intensity, while "19 Witches" flirts with spaghetti western twang and "See You in Hell" has keyboards Ray Manzarek would be proud of. Wyndorf's imagery of world-conquering bad (and good!) trips are perfectly illustrated in the conflations of sex, money, power, and religion that make up the cover photos. A killer and perfectly illustrative leadoff lyric from "Temple of Your Dreams" is: "Wake up baby, 'cause I'm coming to you from the future." ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Expecting Monster Magnet to change from art-sludge-psych monsters into sweet cuddlebunnies from album to album clearly demonstrates a loss of reason. Wyndorf himself doesn't need to worry about losing his reason in particular, given how psychotically entertaining his band already is, and Dopes to Infinity is about as far apart from Superjudge as the original Siamese twins were to each other. Maybe "Dopeheads to Infinity" would have been the better title, but as the title track fires up into another rampage of excessively flanged guitar, storming lead riff, and steady drum stomp, all criticisms get left behind along with any sort of sanity. Wyndorf's singing is a touch crisper in the mix this time out, while the guitar playing is even more powerfully direct and epic amidst all the space-out swirl and rockets to the moon. It's the secret weapon of the album as a whole, turning Monster Magnet's gift for the large scale into something that's almost uplifting, often connecting with a listener instead of dominating one. That Mellotron ("Look to the Orb for the Warning") and strings (the acoustic guitar-led "Blow 'Em Off") are evident along with the sitars, folky strums, and similar acid quease of past albums only makes sense as a result. Then again, songs like "Ego, the Living Planet" and "Theme From 'Masterburner'" do a great job at sounding like Thor battling Galacticus for control of the universe -- no puny humans allowed. Lead single "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" became a minor hit, all the more surprising given how the band's idea of a commercial single features more processed guitar backing Wyndorf on the verses than the law normally allows. The catchy chug and scream of the chorus helps nail it, though, showing that Wyndorf can find the balance between his extreme and less-so sides when desired. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Originally released on Glitterhouse in Europe in 1991 but only seeing an American issue two years later as Caroline took advantage of the band's newfound major-label status, Tab...25 for many remains the high point of Monster Magnet as extreme downer psych/space rock. For good reason as well, thanks to the over half-hour-long title track that takes up the bulk of the space on the disc. Finding a perfectly steady head-nodder of a groove that wouldn't sound out of place at all on a Loop album, say, and with extremely strung-out guitar soloing madness to boot, "Tab...25" sounds exactly like the nightmarish orange-eye image on the back cover looks: weird, alien, and not quite in control of itself. Dave Wyndorf's singing consists mostly of the occasional wordless wail and slurred vocal, often treated with as much delay and flanging as the guitars themselves, though his one spoken-word break, however slightly inaudible, provides a bit of a rock to cling to amid the slow-grind chaos. Even more feedback and noise gets added as it goes, and while for some listeners patience will be tested, as a massive epic it just can't be beaten. Topping that is impossible, so wisely the group doesn't try, but the other two cuts also do the business in their own ways. "Longhair" is 12 minutes long, but rather than stonily zoning out, the band's rhythm section fires up and rips along, occasional breakdowns for breath aside, while the guitarists whip out some great, blunt playing that Hawkwind could be proud of. Wyndorf's singing is distorted on the verses to sound like bubbling molten lava come to life, while the instrumental conclusion slows down just a touch to concentrate on more almighty riffs before one last explosion. The brief "Lord 13" is much calmer in comparison, though still shot through with a tribal electric psych intensity that's worth hearing. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Having already shown that the world of drug-damaged early heavy metal-meets-space rock was well within their capability, Wyndorf and company took things to an even crazier level with Monster Magnet's major-label debut, Superjudge. Anyone taking anything on this album seriously, as some sort of satanic plot or anything like that, needs to just give up and go home -- the song titles alone are crazily ridiculous enough: "Cyclops Revolution," "Elephant Bell," "Dinosaur Vacume," and the baldly but perfectly named "Stadium." A couple of nods to musical roots surface -- the Willie Dixon-written classic "Evil (Is Going On)" kicks reasonable butt, but it's the storm through early Hawkwind standout "Brainstorm" that's the real signpost. There's more than a little of that British band throughout, only arguably even more strung out and insane, a celebration of a stoner culture that had persisted for years and looks set to always be around. Only the Dixon cover and "Black Balloon" stay at three minutes in length; everything else takes a little or a lot more time to satisfyingly sprawl, like the steady stomp of the title track or the monstrous "Cage Around the Sun." Wyndorf's ear for composition, production, and playing is evident throughout -- everything is scaled for the biggest arena in the universe, while his voice positively compares with Ozzy Osbourne's early wailing, yet with a scraggly, rougher edge. Occasional acoustic guitar and sitar parts (with appropriate flanging) help in adding variety and more psychedelia to the proceedings, "Black Balloon" in particular ending Superjudge on a subtle, mysterious note. The spiraling riff explosions and solos of "Twin Earth" and "Dinosaur Vacume" are matched with strong rhythms (due credit to the team of Calandra and Kleiman, who never sound lazy), while any band with lyrics like "I cut off my own head/I don't need it where I'm going to go!" clearly knows how to get in touch with the unapologetic rawk fan out there. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The metal album for people who hate metal albums. A glorious and unapologetic celebration of pure indulgence, Spine of God is the ultimate stoner goof, a brilliant satire of headbanger culture so pitch perfect that it's almost tempting to take it at face value. Bearing the warning "It's a satanic drug thing...you wouldn't understand," the record is a complete mind-f*ck -- the production is positively viscous, a hallucinatory sludge of echo-drenched vocals, bone-rattling drums, and reverbed guitars which seem to stretch on into infinity; frontman Dave Wyndorf is like a shamanic idiot savant floating in a sea of bongwater, growling proclamations like, "If Satan lived in heaven, he'd be me" in the midst of deadpan fantasy freakouts which name-check every teenage metalhead staple, from Led Zep to Playboy to whippets. (There's even a toweringly psychedelic ode to everyone's favorite room deodorizer, "Ozium.") Monster Magnet's genius is that their music speaks directly to the audience it's poking fun at -- Spine of God's sheer sonic intensity is brain-warping stuff even without chemical additives, and its themes of sex, drugs, and evil are so hilariously over the top that it's impossible not to be charmed by the absolute mindlessness of it all. No matter what, proof positive that the road of excess leads anywhere but the palace of wisdom. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
