CD Review: Monster Magnet – Cobras And Fire (The Mastermind Redux)

CD Review: Monster Magnet – Cobras And Fire (The Mastermind Redux)
Napalm Records
All Access Rating: A-

Monster Magnet - Cobras And Fire
(The Mastermind Redux) 2015

After tinkering with 2013's Last Patrol a year ago and slapping a fresh coat of psychedelic aural paint on what was already a mind-blowing record, Dave Wyndorf and Monster Magnet figured why not have another go at 2010's The Mastermind. 

In need of rehabilitation, The Mastermind was a rather uneventful walk in the park compared to more adventurous sonic journeys taken over the years by these stoner-metal visionaries. Given a second chance, they hold nothing back on Cobras And Fire (The Mastermind Redux), sending it screaming through space in a vehicle fueled by powerful drugs.

While slow-burning versions of "Hallucination Bomb" and "Time Machine' crawl across an expansive, alien soundscapes like lost scorpions and celestial voyages "Gods and Punks" and "The Titan" – a hypnotic instrumental – all float on, the apocalyptic firestorm "When The Planes Fall From The Sky" and blinding supernova "Ball of Confusion" engage in all-out attacks on the senses, pushing forward with more urgency as these massive doses of heavy psychedelia bring on terrifying lysergic trips. Even more unsettling, as an undercurrent of menace drifts beneath solar-powered guitar effects in the title track, Wyndorf advises, "You gotta trust your mastermind," and he does it so seductively you begin to wonder if you've been tricked into unknowingly clucking like a chicken for the last hour under his orders.

Taking liberties with The Mastermind, Monster Magnet heightens the drama of "Watch Me Fade" with swirling organ, making like The Doors meets Screaming Jay Hawkins. However, the most explosive choruses are triggered in "She Digs That Hole," as the pent-up, throbbing tension of its verses is finally freed. Doomsday drums, lonely piano and grumbling bass lines are found throughout Cobras And Fire (The Mastermind Redux), as freakish, howling storms of guitars and keyboards become spectacularly colorful backdrops for Wyndorf's lurid, space-rock tales of vengeance, lust and armageddon – gripping stuff from a master storyteller. Trust in Monster Magnet. They almost never let you down.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Monster Magnet – Milking the Stars: a reimagining of Last Patrol

CD Review: Monster Magnet – Milking the Stars: a reimagining of Last Patrol
Napalm Records
All Access Rating: A-

Monster Magnet - Milking the Stars:
a reimagining of Last Patrol 2014

Dave Wyndorf must have his reasons, although a remake of Monster Magnet's space-rock epic Last Patrol, one of the best albums of 2013, seems completely unnecessary.

Then again, Wyndorf is a maverick, artistically unpredictable and full of sonic mischief. He doesn't have to explain himself to anybody. He just does the unexpected and then wonders why everyone makes such a big damn fuss about it.

Wyndorf did that with Last Patrol, summoning forgotten tones and archaic, alien sonic transmissions from resurrected vintage gear to create brilliant, tripped-out aural carnivals of cinematic, swirling, retro psychedelia traveling through the deepest recesses of the universe to entertain misanthropic, burned-out cosmic cowboys with cynical hearts and sinful natures. This, however, is an even riskier venture.

On Milking the Stars: a reimagining of Last Patrol, released by Napalm Records, Wyndorf takes a stab at redesigning these playgrounds, and the alterations – most of them of the "tripping balls" variety – are more than cosmetic. Take "Let The Circus Burn" and "Mindless Ones '68" for example, the latter a more hallucinogenic reinterpretation of Last Patrol's title track that burrows deep into a very warped subconscious, as only Hawkwind could. "Mindless Ones '68," on the other hand, nicks hypnotic organ sounds out of the very hands of The Doors' Ray Manzarek and seems to swirl weightlessly into the harrowing oblivion of a black hole, losing its moorings in an LSD-induced nightmare.

While the production of Last Patrol was scrubbed pretty clean, Milking the Stars is a wild and woolly ride,  "No Paradise for Me" sounding more corrosive and cosmic than the original "Paradise" and the driving "End of Time" coming in hot at a lower elevation, hitting the runway with compromised brakes, Evangelical fervor and strong gusts of B-3 organ. And while most of Milking the Stars is spent looking for a empathetic guide to help it through what is surely a terrifying acid trip, it contains a howling version of "Hallelujah" – titled "Hellelujah (Fuzz and Swamp)" – that is a bluesier, more organic stomp raised from the Mississippi Delta. Clearly, some deal between Wyndorf and the devil has transpired.

Next time, maybe he can tackle an even bigger job, like repainting the Sistene Chapel.
– Peter Lindblad

Best of 2013 in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal – Part 2

Deep Purple, Satyricon, Red Fang ... and more 

by Peter Lindblad

Youth will not be served in this portion of our "Top 20 Hard Rock and Heavy Metal 2013" list, except for Red Fang that is.

Deep Purple, Monster Magnet, Satyricon and Oliva – that's Jon Oliva of Savatage fame – all made compelling arguments for not being put out to pasture in 2013, making some of the most exciting and powerful music of the year.

Here, we tip our cap to albums 15-11. The top 10 awaits. 

Deep Purple - Now What?!

15. Deep Purple: Now What?! – Lost in all the hoopla over Black Sabbath's comeback was the return of Deep Purple, who crafted one of the most beguiling and intoxicating records of their career. By turns cinematic and mysterious, with a widescreen Middle Eastern vibe that recalls Ian Gillan's work with Tony Iommi on the recent WhoCares collaboration, Now What?! is also smolderingly soulful and even, in a minor sense, jazzy. And yet it never lets you forget that Purple can still burn through hot-wired hard rock, like the stuff that made them one of the '70s most explosive acts, with the kind of musical chops other bands would die for, as Don Airey and Steve Morse take off the training wheels and go for broke.

Oliva - Raise the Curtain 2013

14. Oliva: Raise the Curtain – Savatage was always a different kind of metal animal, theatrical and progressive while still managing to sound powerful and heavy. With Raise the Curtain, Jon Oliva, the group's founder, pulled out all the tricks, making this a Bat Out of Hell for the new millennium. Only Meat Loaf was never this unpredictable or adventurous, as Oliva boldly takes a lot of risks here, but the emphasis with Raise the Curtain is always on great drama and melodic grandeur, leading its wide-eyed audience through aural scenery and costume changes as breathtaking as any Broadway show.

Red Fang - Whales and Leeches 2013

13. Red Fang: Whales and Leeches – Maybe it was a small step backward. Maybe Red Fang isn't quite ready to make that grand statement of bearded and boozy metal glory everybody believed they would with Whales and Leeches. Still, the stormy Whales and Leeches is a whirlwind of purposeful and nearly manic activity, and yet it harnesses brawny riffs, wonderfully warped lyrics and raging rhythmic bluster into fairly tight, but malleable, song structures. Red Fang is kind of like Mastodon's more mischievous little brother, somewhat less serious with a slight touch of ADD. 

Monster Magnet - Last Patrol 2013

12. Monster Magnet: Last Patrol – It's all fine and good that Monster Magnet went back to using vintage gear for the making of Last Patrol. The fact that they did so and were able to generate such a compelling blend of wind-whipping space-rock and mind-bending psychedelia is more a testament to the creativity and songwriting aptitude of Dave Wyndorf than any simple equipment changes. Moments of painful introspection are leavened by cosmic tales of revenge and debauchery, as Monster Magnet flies around the universe looking for cheap thrills, and Last Patrol is full of them.  

Satyricon - S/T 2013

11. Satyricon: Satyricon – Not as blackened as in days of yore, Satyricon, nevertheless, can still conjure up plenty of chillingly melodic brutality, technical free-for-alls and dark malevolence on command, as this self-titled effort so effectively illustrates. The Norwegian black metal stalwarts don't mind slogging through layers of sonic sludge or inviting doom metal heaviness into their fortress of solitude, but Satyricon has morphed into a more dynamic entity, somehow becoming increasingly intense and heated in the process, while never quite escaping the eerie atmospheres in which they've lived for lo these many years. And there's something oddly comforting about that.

CD Review: Monster Magnet – Last Patrol

Monster Magnet – Last Patrol

Napalm Records

All Access Rating: A-

Monster Magnet - Last Patrol 2013

Without Monster Magnet around to spark up their own full-throttle brand of “stoner metal” and go joy-riding through space to seek adventure and cruise for easy girls in the cosmos, the universe would be far less interesting.

Hedonistic space lords as magnificent as Dave Wyndorf apologize for nothing, and with the unforgiving Last Patrol, Monster Magnet’s latest magic carpet ride on Napalm Records, pimped out in retro amps, guitars and trippy effects in an attempt to summon the hallucinogenic demons of their early psychedelic-garage days, the word “sorry” cannot be found his rich vocabulary. Exuding warm and distinctive clarity, Last Patrol is produced with care, so that every part of this sonic space-rock jalopy sounds brand new and forceful, even with all the miles on her.

Housed in such a clean-running machine, this work of mind-blowing pulp fiction is full of noir-style, sci-fi tales of obsessive torment, revenge fantasies and sexual conquest pulled from the outer reaches of Wyndorf’s fevered imagination, and yet Last Patrol never gets lost in the stormy turbulence of its own making. Even amid the howling chaos of wah-wah guitars, crazed distortion and crashing drums that close the title track, Monster Magnet’s momentum-gathering riffs drive straight through it without ever being blown off course, just as they do in “End of Time,” another blazing garage-rock comet propelled forward with apocalyptic urgency and NASA-like precision into swirling madness.  

Painting vivid scenes with absurdist imagery and colorful language, Wyndorf talks of stairs that lead nowhere, a man-hungry 10-foot blonde and “dead moons and chicken bones” in a commanding, if weathered, voice, as if he’s author Philip K. Dick with a guitar. With his craggy, deep vocals, Wyndorf builds aural cinematic drama like a musical John Ford, the ominous acoustic guitar plucking and strums in the intros to “Paradise” and “I Live behind the Clouds” foreshadowing something evil coming this way or a showdown of half android, half human gunfighters in a parallel futuristic universe to Deadwood.

There is religious fervor in the stomping, hell-spawned blues of “Hallelujah,” where Wyndorf gives a wild-eyed sermon on sin and salvation that could make the dead rise and the righteous weep. And while the careening “Mindless Ones” works up a furious tempest of distorted, violent energy reminiscent of those whipped up by Hawkwind, in Monster Magnet’s disembodied hands, Donovan’s exotic “Three Kingfishers” undergoes a withering transformation into a heavy metal odyssey of the mind, “Stay Tuned” dives headlong into tunneling blackness and “The Duke (Of Supernature)” hitches a ride upriver through the conga drum currents of Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan.” Monster Magnet continues to go where others fear to tread.

 –   Peter Lindblad