Welcome to Thursday of the Fall 202 Quarterly Review. It’s been a good run so far. three days and 30 records, about to be four and 40. I’ve got enough on my desktop and there’s enough stuff coming out this month that I could probably do a second Fall QR in November, and maybe stave off needing to do a double-one in December as I had been planning in the back of my head. Whatever, I’ll figure it out.

I hope you’ve been able to find something you dig. I definitely have, but that’s how it generally goes. These things are always a lot of work, and somehow I seem to plan them on the busiest weeks — today we’re volunteering at the grade school book fair; I think I’ll dig out my old Slayer God Hates Us All shirt from 20 years ago and see if it still fits. Sadly, I think we all know how that experiment will work out.

Anyway, busy times, good music, blah blah, let’s roll.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

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Darsombra, Dumesday Book

Forever touring and avant garde to their very marrow, ostensibly-Baltimorean duo Darsombra — Ann Everton on keys, vocals, live visuals, and who the hell knows what else, Brian Daniloski on guitar, a living-room pedal board, and engineering at the band’s home studio — unveil Dumesday Book as a 75-minute collection not only of works like “Call the Doctor” (posted here) or “Call the Doctor” (posted here), which appear as remixes, but their first proper album of this troubled decade after 2019’s Transmission (review here) saw them reach so far out into the cosmic thread to harness their bizarre stretches of bleeps and boops, manipulated vocals, drones, noise and suitably distraught collage in “Everything is Canceled” — which they answer later with “Still Canceled,” because charm — but the reassurance here is in the continuation of Daniloski and Everton‘s audio adventures, and their commitment to what should probably at this point in space-time be classified as free jazz remains unflinching. Squares need not apply, and if you’re into stuff like structure, there’s some of that, but all Darsombra ever need to get gone is a direction in which to head — literally or figuratively — so why not pick them all?

Darsombra on Instagram

Darsombra on Bandcamp

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Bottomless, The Banishing

Cavernous in its echo and with a grit of tone that is the aural equivalent of the feeling of pull in your hand when you make a doom claw, The Banishing is the second full-length from Italian doom rockers Bottomless. Working as the trio of vocalist/guitarist Giorgio Trombino (ex-Elevators to the Grateful Sky, etc.), drummer David Lucido (Assumption, among a slew of others) and bassist Sara Bianchin — the latter also of Messa and recently replaced in Bottomless by Laura Nardelli (Ponte del Diavolo, etc.) — the band follow their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) with an eight-track collection that comes across as its own vision of garage doom. It’s not about progressive flourish or elaborate production, but about digging into the raw creeper groove of “Guardians of Silence” or the righteous post-Pentagram chug-and-nod of “Let Them Burn.” It is not solely intended as worship for what’s come before. Doom-of-eld, the NWOBHM, ’70s proto splurges all abound, but in the vocal and guitar melody of “By the Sword of the Archangel” and the dramatic rolling finish of “Dark Waters” after the acoustic-led interlude “Drawn Into Yesterday,” in the gruel of “Illusion Sun,” they channel these elements through themselves and come out with an album that, for as dark and grim as it would likely sound to more than 99 percent of the general human population, is pure heart.

Bottomless on Facebook

Dying Victims Productions website

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The Death Wheelers, Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness

Look. I don’t know The Death Wheelers personally at all. We don’t hang out on weekends. But the sample-laced (“We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the Man — and we wanna get loaded!” etc.), motorcycle-themed Québecois instrumental outfit sound on their second LP, the 12-track/40-minute riff-pusher Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, like they’re onto something. And again, I don’t know these cats at all. I don’t know what they do for work, what their lives are like, any of it. But if The Death Wheelers want to get out and give this record the support it deserves, the place they need to be is Europe. Yeah, I know there was The Picturebooks, but they were clean-chrome and The Death Wheelers just cracked a smile and showed you the fly that got splattered on their front tooth while they were riding — sonically speaking. The dust boogie of “Lucifer’s Bend,” the duly stoned “Interquaalude” ahead of the capper duo of “Sissy Bar Strut (Nymphony 69)” and “Cycling for Satan Part II” and the blowout roll in “Ride into the Röt (Everything Lewder Than Everything Else)” — this is a band who should bypass America completely for touring and focus entirely on Europe. Because the US will come around, to be sure, but not for another three or four month-long Euro stints get the point across. I don’t know that that’ll happen or it won’t, but they sound ready.

The Death Wheelers on Facebook

RidingEasy Records store

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Caivano, Caivano

The career arc of guitarist Phil Caivano — and of course he does other stuff as well, including vocals on his self-titled solo-project’s debut, Caivano, but some people seem to have been born to hold a guitar in their hands and he’s one of those; see also Bob Balch — is both longer and broader than his quarter-century as guitarist and songwriting contributor to Monster Magnet, but the NJ heavy rock stalwarts will nonetheless be the closest comparison point to these 10 tracks and 33 minutes, a kind of signature sleazy roll in “Talk to the Dead,” the time-to-get-off-your-ass push of “Come and Get Me” at the start or the punkier “Verge of Yesterday” — touch of Motörhead there seeming well earned — a cosmic ripper on a space backbeat in “Fun & Games,” but all of this is within a tonal and production context that’s consistent across the span, malleable in style, unshakable in structure. Closer “Face the Music” is the longest cut at 5:04 and is a drumless spacey experiment with vocals and a guitar figure wrapped around a central drone, and that adds yet more character to the proceedings. I’d wonder how long some of these songs or parts have been around or if Caivano is going to put a group together — could be interesting — and make a go of it apart from his ‘main band,’ but he’s long since established himself as an exceptional player, and listening to some of this material highlights contributions of style and substance to shaping Monster Magnet as well. Phil Caivano: songwriter.

Caivano on Instagram

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Entropía, Eclipses

Together for nearly a decade, richly informed by the progressive and space rock(s) of the 1970s, prone to headspinning feats of lead guitar like that in the back end of second cut “Dysania,” Entropía offer their second full-length in Eclipses, a five-track/40-minute excursion of organ-inclusive cosmic prog that reminds of Hypnos 69 in the warm serenity at the start of “Tarbes,” threatens the epic on seven-minute opener “Thesan” and delivers readily throughout; a work of scope that runs deep in the pairing of “Tarbes” and “Caleidoscopia” — both of which top nine minutes long — but it’s there that Entropía reveal the full spectrum of light they’re working with, whether it’s that tonal largesse that rears up in the latter or the jazzy kosmiche shove in the payoff of the former. And the drums come forward to start closer “Polaris,” which follows, as Entropía nestle into one more groovy submersion, finding heavy shuffle in the drums — hell yeah — and holding that tension until it’s time for the multi-tiered finish and only-necessary peaceful comedown. It’s inevitable that some records in a Quarterly Review get written about and I never listen to them again. I’ll be back to this one.

Entropía on Facebook

Clostridium Records store

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Ghorot, Wound

God damn, Ghorot, leave some nasty for the rest of the class. The Boise, Idaho, three-piece — vocalist/bassist Carson Russell (also Ealdor Bealu), guitarist/vocalist Chad Remains (ex-Uzala) and drummer/vocalist Brandon Walker — launch their second LP, Wound, with the gloriously screamed, righteously-coated-in-filth, choking-on-mud extreme sludge they appropriately titled “Dredge.” And fuck if it doesn’t get meaner from there as Ghorot — working with esteemed producer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, etc.) and releasing through Lay Bare Recordings and King of the Monsters Records — take the measure of your days and issue summary judgment in the negative through the mellow-harshing bite of “In Asentia,” the least brutal part of which kind of sounds like High on Fire and the death/black metal in centerpiece “Corsican Leather.” All of which is only on side A. On side B, “Canyon Lands” imagines a heavy Western meditation — shades of Ealdor Bealu in the guitar — that retains its old-wizard vocal gurgle, and capper “Neanderskull” finally pushes the entire affair off of whatever high desert cliffside from which it’s been proclaiming all this uberdeath and into a waiting abyss of willfully knuckledragging blower deconstruction. The really scary shit is these guys’ll probably do another record after this one. Yikes.

Ghorot on Facebook

Lay Bare Recordings website

King of the Monsters Records website

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Moozoonsii, Outward

With the self-release of Outward, heavy progressive psych instrumentalists Moozoonsii complete a duology of pandemic-constructed outings that began with last year’s (of course) Inward, and to do so, the trio based in Nantes, France, continue to foster a methodology somewhere between metal and rock, finding ground in precision riffing in the 10-minute “Nova” or in the bumps and crashes after eight minutes into the 13-minute “Far Waste,” but they’re just as prone to jazzy skronk-outs like in the midsection solo of “Lugubris,” and the entire release is informed by the unfolding psychedelic meditationscape of “Stryge” at the start, so by no, no, no means at all are they doing one thing for the duration. “Toxic Lunar Vibration,” which splits the two noted extended tracks, brings the sides together as if to emphasize this point, not so much fitting those pointed angles together as delighting in the ways in which they do and don’t fit at certain times as part of their creative expression. Pairing that impulse with the kind of heavy-as-your-face-if-your-face-had-a-big-boulder-on-it fuzz in “Tauredunum” is a hell of a place to wind up. The unpredictable character of the material that surrounds only makes that ending sweeter and more satisfying.

Moozoonsii on Facebook

Moozoonsii on Bandcamp

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Death Wvrm, Enter / The Endless

An initial two tracks from UK trio Death Wvrm, both instrumental, surfaced earlier this year, one in Spring around the time of their appearance at Desertfest London — quiet a coup for a seemingly nascent band; but listening to them I get it — and after. “Enter” was first, “The Endless” second, and the two of them tell a story unto themselves; narrative seeming to be part of the group’s mission from this point of outset, as each single comes with a few sentences of accompanying scene-setting. Certainly not going to complain about the story, and the band have some other surprises in store in these initial cuts, be it the bright, mid-period Beatles-y tone in the guitar for “The Endless” (it’s actually only about four and a half minutes) or the driving fuzz that takes hold after the snap of snare at 2:59, or the complementary layer of guitar in “Enter” that speaks to broader ambitions sound-wise almost immediately on the part of the band. “Enter” and “The Endless” both start quiet and get louder — the scorch in “Enter” isn’t to be discounted — but they do so in differing ways, and so while one listens to the first two cuts a band is putting out and expects growth in complexity and method, that’s actually just fine, because it’s exactly also what one is left wanting after the two songs are done: more. I’m not saying show up at their house or anything, but maybe give a follow on Bandcamp and keep an eye.

Death Wvrm on Instagram

Death Wvrm on Bandcamp

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Mudness, Mudness

Safe to assume some level of self-awareness on the part of Brazilian trio Mudness who, after unveiling their first single “R.I.P.” in 2020 make their self-titled full-length debut with seven songs of hard-burned wizard riffing, the plod of “Gone” (also an advance single, if not by three years) and guitarist Renan Casarin‘s Obornian moans underscoring the disaffected stoner idolatry. Joined by Fernando Dal Bó, whose bass work is crucial to the success of the entire release — can’t roll it if it ain’t heavy — and drummer Pedro Silvano, who adds malevolent swing to the slow march forward of “This End Body,” the centerpiece of the seven-song/35-minute long player. There’s an interlude, “Lamuria,” that could probably have shown up earlier, but one should keep in mind that the sense of onslaught between the likes of “Evil Roots” and “Yellow Imp” is part of the point, and likewise that they’re saving an extra layer of aural grime for “Final Breeze,” where they answer the more individual take of “This End Body” with a reach into melodicism and mark their appeal both in what they might bring to their sound moving forward and the planet-sucked-anyhow despondent crush of this collection. Putting it on the list for the best debuts of 2023. It’s not innovative, or trying to be, but that doesn’t stop it from accomplishing its aims in slow, mostly miserable stride.

Mudness on Facebook

Mudness on Bandcamp

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The Space Huns, Legends of the Ancient Tribes

I’m not generally one to tell you how to spend your money, but if you take a look over at The Space Huns‘ Bandcamp page (linked below), you’ll see that the Hungarian psych jammers’ entire digital discography is €3.50. Again, not trying to tell you how to live your life, but Legends of the Ancient Tribes, the Szeged-based trio’s new hour-long album, has a song on it called “Goats on a Discount Private Space Shuttle Voyage,” and from where I sit that entitles the three-piece of guitarist Csaba Szőke, bassist Tamás Tikvicki and drummer Mátyás Mozsár to that cash and perhaps more. I could just as easily note “Sgt. Taurus on Coke” at the start of the outing or “The Melancholic Stag Beetle Who Got Inspired by Corporate Motivational Coaches” — or the essential fact that in addition to the best song titles I’ve seen all year (again, and perhaps more), the jams are ace. Chemistry to spare, patience when it’s called for but malleable enough to boogie or nod and sound no less natural doing either, while keeping an exploratory if not improvisational — and it might be that too — character to the material. It’s not a minor undertaking at 59 minutes, but between the added charm of the track names and the grin-inducing nod of “Cosmic Cities of the Giant Snail Kingdom,” they make it easy.

The Space Huns on Facebook

The Space Huns on Bandcamp

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Some bands are just always going to have a place in your heart. We’re going on 19 years since Halfway to Gone released their 2004 self-titled third album through Small Stone, and there’s still some part of me waiting for a follow-up. What can I say? It’s a universe of infinite possibilities. That could be one of them. If believing that makes me sentimental, I’ve been called worse.

Formed in my beloved Garden State of New Jersey around the turn of the century, Halfway to Gone made their debut in a 2000 split with Alabama Thunderpussy released by Game Two Records and spent the next half-decade or so on a ripper course of three albums and multiple tours, playing a kind of Northeastern take on semi-Southern heavy rock and roll. Their first long-player, High Five (discussed here), surfaced through Small Stone in 2001, Second Season (discussed here) followed in 2002, and their self-titled third album — the band firmly declaring who they were throughout 12 hard-hitting, riff-propelled tracks, workman-like in their everyday-woes and lyrical middlefingerism and sharp in their expression — came two years later and remains a moment of arrival for the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Lou Gorra, guitarist Stu Gollin and drummer Danny Gollin, who had a hand in producing along with Robert Burrows and Bob Pantella (Monster Magnet, Raging Slab, subsequently also The Atomic Bitchwax, etc.), the latter of whom also mixed. So thanks, Bob, I guess, for making “Slidin’ Down the Razor” sound so massive but still move. Thanks everybody, maybe.

The phrase ‘dirt rock’ didn’t really exist at the time, as much as it does now with any meaning behind it, but it’s hard to find another designation that suits the 41-minutes of Halfway to Gone as well. Careening ragers like “Couldn’t Even Find a Fight” and “Burn ’em Down” show the band at their most brash — it’s not as fast, but the penultimate swing of “King of Mean” should be on that list as well, for Danny‘s drums as much as the lyrics — thick in tone and groove but thoroughly in control, confident in what they are doing and never as sharp or efficient in their songwriting. Rolling first track “Turnpike” wastes no time on introductions. It places them squarely in New Jersey but drips with attitude and grievance in its lyrics (so yes, New Jersey), while its jammy side B counterpart “His Name is Leroi (King of Troi)” loops guitar effects and noise — Billy Reedy, Small Stone‘s own Scott Hamilton, and Big Chief‘s Phil Dürr (R.I.P.) are credited with album guest spots on guitar, feedback and “ridiculator,” respectively — as a kind of breather before “Burn ’em Down” takes off at full speed, mirroring “Couldn’t Even Find a Fight”‘s launch after the heavier midtempo push of the opener.

Of the many, many heavy rock covers of Deep Purple‘s “Black Night” that have surfaced in the last half-century, Halfway to Gone‘s stands among the most off-the-cuff, let’s-take-a-crack-at-it casual, and the grit they kick at that famous, bouncy start-stop riff makes it feel right at home alongside the blues of “Hammers Fallin'” and the are-you-guys-making-fun-of-Dixie–Witch slide guitar in “Out on the Road,” on which Danny joins Gorra on backing vocals, which is probably something that could’ve happened more often than it did. Harmonica scorch tops the outset of the more severe fuzz crashes in “Good Friend,” but the song is ultimately more about the turn in its second half, Stu taking another in his series of ripper solos — some folks are just born to play lead guitar, and then they work at it too for a few decades and get even better — as the trio turns to more of a gallop, Gorra finishing with the shouty refrain, “I still get by/I still get high for free,” in and out in just over three minutes.

It was alluded to noted, but while Halfway to Gone sounded mean and dirty, one of its most vital aspects — then and now — is its ability to get in, kick ass, and get out. Each song offers something to distinguish it from the rest, bolstering and broadening the whole impression of the record, but the tones are consistent, the structures are steady and the performances are tight even in a looser-rolling piece like “The Other Side,” which pulls back on the general intensity from “Burn ’em Down” just before, finds Gorra with a more melodic take on vocals, and allows a grunge-via-blues spaciousness to flourish for a few moments before they head down the highway in “Out on the Road,” the lyrics in the hook of which namedrop the band, “I’m going for broke/Out on the road/Halfway to gone,” with lines rearranged the second and third times through, the last of which is especially soulful in finishing the song. The momentum keeps going. After that pair, “King of Mean” feels like a relative surge, and the Hammond-led blues jam “Mr. Nasty Time” seems at last to let go of the tension that’s run like an electrical current through most of what’s preceded, meandering for a few minutes before giving over to the sample of the actor George C. Scott from 1979’s Hardcore repeating “turn it off” in increasingly guttural fashion as his reality comes crashing down on him.

That kind of self-effacing humor is quintessential to understanding this record, this era of heavy rock. Halfway to Gone weren’t about to take themselves too seriously, even though they had to know they just put everything they had into making this record. And like many of the pre-social media mobilization, pre-streaming era, their work remains ripe for reissue and as much contemporary as it is classic, but I won’t pretend not to be nostalgic. A month or two ago, the town of Long Branch tore down what was an epicenter of New Jersey’s heavy rock scene in the Brighton Bar, and thinking about the shows seen (and a couple played) there, including the last time I saw Halfway to Gone now over a decade ago (review here), I feel old enough to know that some things go and you don’t get them back and that’s it. I wouldn’t want this band to just do another record for nothing, but if Lou, Stu and Danny had it in them, I do think it might earn them some of the respect they’ve long since deserved. This was the last of their albums I hadn’t written about, as you can see from the “discussed here” links above, and so finishing this makes me a little sad. So it goes.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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Oy vey, this week.

I’m not sorry to see it go.

Like a lot of people presently being ripped off by the increasing costs of everything — gas, food, lodging — we’re about as broke as we’ve been since moving back to NJ. They raised the price of eggs a dollar and it matters. That kind of broke. The holidays apparently destroyed us, and the stress of locking down spending, as it will, has bled into the general mood of the household. To tell you something you likely already know: it sucks. Paychecks are gone before they’re here, and especially with it being winter, dark and cold, there’s just not as much to do with the hours of the day. The Patient Mrs. posits this as part of why The Pecan has been throwing punches and kicks as much as he has. In any case, it is a harsh moment in which to exist, and the fact that I am not gainfully employed — as much as parenting is “work,” and it is, it brings nothing in terms of income (please do get me started on UBI and the child tax credit) — weighs as heavily as my own e’er-expanding, middle-aged ass.

I hope you enjoyed the Quarterly Review. That’s 100 records I’m mostly glad to have covered. I’ve been doing QRs for about eight years now, so if we say it’s usually 50 per, four times a year, that’s 200 a year, times eight is 1,600, plus another couple hundred for extended QRs like this one and the last, and it’s probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 QR reviews at this point. It’s become a big part of how I’m able to get stuff in, and there’s always more, which is amazing and humbling in kind.

Next week is back to whatever normal is around here, some premieres, etc. Monday I’ll review the event demos/rarities collection from Samsara Blues Experiment basically as a favor to myself — there’s a new Fuzz Sagrado record as well (that being the new project of ex-SBE guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters, now based in Brazil), and I’ll get there too — and then it’s on from there.

I think new merch is dropping today. Check http://mibk.bigcartel.com/products if you get a second. Any support is deeply appreciated.

Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate, watch your head. See you back here Monday for more of whatever it is we do around here.

The Obelisk Collective on Facebook

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

 

This’ll be fun. If you’ve heard those old demos — they’re on YouTube and all that — that earliest Monster Magnet stuff is noisy and experimental and raw as hell. Even as God Unknown Records announces Test Patterns: Vol. 1 to be released on Nov. 11 with a remix of “Tab” by John McBain — yes please — and the demo that first spawned the longform psych weirdness of that track-as-album’s final incarnation, the label notes that it comes from the 1989 demo, Forget About Life, I’m High on Dope. Should the whole demo be released? Yeah, probably. Will it? I don’t know. Fuck do I look like?

Fact is, that first incarnation of Monster Magnet, with Dave Wyndorf, McBain and the thankfully-archivalist Tim Cronin were kids screwing around. The noise they made, drawing from psych, kraut and space rocks, their own Jersey Shore disaffection and feedback-laced catharsis, just happened to be the key to unlocking a certain segment of the universe that was shut tight until they came along. Did they know they were doing it? Did they know that, 30-plus years later, those tapes would be getting reissued as ‘volumes’ of a band’s earliest work? Likely not. That doesn’t make it any less impressive.

Sign me up for this one. And if there’s a subscriber option for multiple volumes, I’ll take those as well. Even the teaser here sounds over the top.

Right on:

MONSTER MAGNET ANNOUNCE ‘TEST PATTERNS: VOL. 1’ TO BE RELEASED NOVEMBER 11TH VIA GOD UNKNOWN RECORDS ON 12” VINYL

Very excited to announce the return of MONSTER MAGNET’s ‘Tab’ – THE LEGENDARY PSYCHEDELIC MASTERPIECE on God Unknown Records.

Originally formed by Dave Wyndorf, John McBain and Tim Cronin, Monster Magnet lysergic oozed into the world in 1989 with two demo tapes – ‘Forget About Life, I’m High On Dope’ and ‘I’m Stoned, What Ya Gonna Do About It?’ – making it perfectly clear from the start where they were coming from. This was a band reveling in bad trips and the death of the hippy dream with a Manson Family stare, playing squelchy lo-fi psychedelic music with a rabid punk rock sneer, like The Stooges terrorising Hawkwind at the most unpleasant free festival imaginable. There were tales of entire audiences at their gigs being spiked with LSD. It didn’t matter if this was true or not, it all added to the mystique. This was indeed a satanic drug thing, you wouldn’t understand.

Long considered to be the true essence of Magnet’s early psychedelic voyages, ‘Tab’ is finally returning to earth’s stratosphere with the release of ‘Test Patterns: Vol.1’, available November 11th via God Unknown Records on 12” vinyl.

‘Test Patterns: Vol. 1’ features a 2021 remix of ‘Tab’ by John McBain, alongside the original demo, recorded in 1988 and then released on the aforementioned ‘Forget About Life, I’m High On Dope’ in 1989.

“Hawkwind, early UFO, Amon Duul, Can, Skullflower, Morgen, Loop, Crystalized Movements, early Alice Cooper, Walking Seeds, Butthole Surfers, Spacemen 3. When we recorded the first demo and got to TAB, we just beat the shit out of it until it became heavy, noisy, weird, mean and either too long or not long enough, depending on your mood. Everything we wanted in a song (at least everything I wanted in a song), punishingly psychedelic. Jersey Shore krautrock.”

http://zodiaclung.com
https://www.facebook.com/monstermagnet/
https://www.instagram.com/monstermagnetofficial/
https://twitter.com/monstermagnetnj

https://www.facebook.com/godunknownrecords
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http://www.godunknownrecs.com/

Monster Magnet, Test Patterns Vol. 1 teaser

Kind of an interesting reframing happening here of Monster Magnet‘s 2007 album, 4-Way Diablo. Originally released like its exclamatory 2004 predecessor, Monolithic Baby! (discussed here), through SPV/Steamhammer, and set to issue through Napalm Records on Sept. 16, 4-Way Diablo was all but disowned for years, its making and release having coincided with founding frontman Dave Wyndorf‘s getting sober, stint in rehab, and so on. Clearly not a highlight time of the long-running New Jersey heavy rockers’ tenure, though perhaps even as its most addled, Wyndorf‘s songwriting is still unfuckwithable, and the leadoff title-track proves that handily. It ain’t Powertrip, and it ain’t Spine of God, but 4-Way Diablo still has something to offer on a fresh listen.

I had hoped that, as Monster Magnet dug back into their own catalog to reboot albums that they’d take on 4-Way Diablo and produce it as raw as possible, like barebones, band-in-garage-on-4-track demo style. Go back and listen to 1990’s Monster Magnet and that’s what I’m talking about. Even just on a lark, issued DIY or something like that, but alas. If you squint hard enough — with your ears, of course — you can hear where it would work, though I’ll readily admit that the weirder and more out-there Monster Magnet get, the better a place I think the universe gets in general. If you doubt that, return to their 2021 covers collection, A Better Dystopia (review here), or 2015’s Cobras and Fire (review here), which reworked songs from 2010’s pointedly hard rock Mastermind (review here).

In any case, not knowing what’s coming next has always been a big part of Monster Magnet‘s appeal. Four years after their most recent new studio LP, that is still very much the case.

From the PR wire:

MONSTER MAGNET to Reissue Classic Albums Monolithic Baby! and 4-Way Diablo on Limited Edition Vinyl

Physical and Digital Versions out September 16, 2022

Pre-Order HERE: https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/monstermagnet

Psychedelic rock icons MONSTER MAGNET are pleased to announce the reissue of two seminal albums in their vast discography on limited edition vinyl – 2004’s Monolithic Baby!and 2007’s 4-Way Diablo – both of which have been out of print and unavailable digitally for years! Pre-orders for both the digital and vinyl editions of both albums are available now, set for release on September 16, 2022.

MONSTER MAGNET mastermind Dave Wyndorf says about the reissues:

“It’s great to see these two albums back in circulation again. The MONSTER MAGNETuniverse isn’t complete without them! Monolithic Baby! is a big, glitzy (and purposefully cynical, but aren’t they all?) rock and roll record, and listening to it now reminds me of that time – the beginning of the 21st century. Even then I knew things were gonna get weird!

4 Way Diablo is a collection of songs I wrote between tours in the early 2000s but couldn’t find a place for. They piled up fast, and pretty soon, there was an album. It turns out there’s some of my favorite Magnet songs there!”

Pre-Order your MONSTER MAGNET Reissues HERE: https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/monstermagnet

2004 saw the release of MONSTER MAGNET’s sixth studio album Monolithic Baby!, the follow-up to 2000’s God Says No, which cemented the Red Bank, NJ rockers in the world of space rock and roll. This 14-track journey of masterful hard rock features 11 ripping originals and three cover songs recorded in true classic Magnet style, including covers of The Velvet Underground, David Gilmour and Robert Calvert.

Monolithic Baby! is being reissued on orange vinyl with white and black splatter, as well as in a limited glow in the dark vinyl variant!

Monolithic Baby! Track listing
1. Slut Machine
2. Supercruel
3. On The Verge
4. Unbroken (Hotel Baby)
5. Radiation Day
6. Monolithic
7. The Right Stuff
8. There’s No Way Out Of Here
9. Master Of Light
10. Too Bad
11. Ultimate Everything
12. CNN War Theme

Recorded in four different studios (Sound City Studios, American Studios, The Sunset Lodge and Hydeaway Studios) throughout 2006-2007, 4-Way Diablo is the seventh offering from legendary riff masters MONSTER MAGNET. Featuring rippers such as “Wall of Fire,” “You’re Alive,” and a cover of an obscure Rolling Stones song “2000 Lightyears From Home,” 4-Way Diablo is a true gem in the MONSTER MAGNET catalog.

4-Way Diablo is being reissued on white vinyl with gold and black splatter, as well in a limited, special glow in the dark vinyl variant!

4-Way Diablo Track listing
1. 4-Way Diablo
2. Wall Of Fire
3. You’re Alive
4. Blow Your Mind
5. Cyclone
6. 2000 Light Years From Home
7. No Vacation
8. Thanks I’m Calling You
9. Solid Gold
10. Freeze And Pixillate
11. A Thousand Stars
12. Slap In the Face
13. Little Bag Of Gloom

Considered one of the most creative, diverse, and hard-rocking of contemporary American bands, MONSTER MAGNET is credited with pioneering “stoner rock”. They’re noted for the uniqueness of their sound, their authenticity as a band, their ability to grow musically, and the intelligence and wit of their songs – fusing garage rock, progressive rock, heavy metal, punk and psychedelia. In addition to musical influences, the band has always been inspired by comic book, science fiction, horror movies, and B-movies by filmmakers such as Roger Gorman and Russ Myer.

http://zodiaclung.com
https://www.facebook.com/monstermagnet/
https://www.instagram.com/monstermagnetofficial/

www.napalmrecords.com
www.facebook.com/napalmrecords

Monster Magnet, “Monolithic” official video

Monster Magnet, “4-Way Diablo”

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Tim Cronin of The Ribeye Brothers

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I sing in The Ribeye Brothers a garage rock band. I started in my mid/late 20s in a couple of bands that didn’t really do much, most notably Dog of Mystery with John McBain and later Dave Wyndorf which morphed into Monster Magnet. I initially drummed and sang. It started out being noisy repetitive heavy psych jams with the rhythm being pretty basic, as I was/am a non-drummer I was fine with simple heavy “cave man-esque” drums. Vocals were an afterthought, mainly drowned by the music.

As the band progressed, the song structures became more complex and my musical shortcomings were emphasized. Dave was becoming more comfortable singing and playing guitar and had the right “swagger” for the songs. I had/have what might be charitably described as “anti-swagger.” So after a brief uncomfortable tenure (two singles, two EPs) I ended up doing lights and liquid projections for Magnet where I was a better fit. I then started Daisy Cutter with Jim and Reg Hogan where I was happy being part of a two-drummer lineup. In ’97, Jon Kleiman (drummer for Magnet, guitarist for Ribeyes) and I started writing songs and that’s where I’m at now.

Describe your first musical memory.

When I was a little kid on a drive with my parents in our Datsun station wagon, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” by Dionne Warwick came on and something clicked. I know I’ve heard songs/music before that but that’s the one that stuck.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Seeing Mudhoney at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick opening for Das Damen, like a fucking bomb went off.

When I was in Monster Magnet and the first time we played CBGB’s.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Probably one of the early European tours Magnet did. It really opened my eyes about America’s place in the world and how it’s perceived. I was part of a mainly European crew playing foreign venues and it was eye-opening.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Hopefully to more progression which could go in any direction. Revisiting previous work with different eyes is also progression.

How do you define success?

Doing something that is challenging and even if it’s generally considered a failure, you get something out of it. More realistically, being able to pay your bills by doing something that’s artistically fulfilling.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Besides a couple of dead bodies (traffic accidents), some shitty movies and the Trump presidency, not much.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I have no idea until I actually do it.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Think outside yourself, show the world in a different way.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Always the New York Mets.

https://www.facebook.com/TheRibeyeBrothers
https://www.instagram.com/ribeyebrothersband/
https://theribeyebrothers.bandcamp.com/

The Ribeye Brothers, “Eyes of Santa”

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Justin Daniels of Solace

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

Speaking on behalf of what Solace does, probably just like every other band we try to avoid being defined by a specific genre. As a band we pull from so many influences. It’s hard to describe something you’re so close to and intimate with. It means so much more than “If you like Sabbath and heavy music you’ll probably dig us”. But that’s always the simplest go-to for me.

Describe your first musical memory.

Motown, George Benson & Stevie Wonder were the constant soundtrack of my early childhood. But the earliest memory of me actually paying attention to music is probably the Genesis ST (shapes) album. My best friend’s mom had the LP and we would spin it over and over. Pretending to get shot every time Phil Collins belted “BANG BANG BANG” in “Just a Job to Do.”

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Crying to Pink Floyd in a tour van in the Highlands of Scotland. My father had passed away earlier that year after a long, hard fight with cancer. He’d been really into the fact that I was in a band and as we drove through that beautiful, overcast landscape of lonely meadows and mountains, “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” setting the mood, I wished he could see me.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Justice. Everyday I see how unfair and hypocritical the world can be. I believe in justice but I see how unequal it truly is.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

You have to continue to be inspired. If the spark dies and need to create doesn’t touch you anymore why continue? Money? Expectation? There’s no artistry in that. Progressing as an artist, to me, means searching out new experiences and learning new things. That’s what keeps the fire alight.

How do you define success?

In music specifically I think success is getting the opportunity to share your creation with people who feel something from it. People connecting with your music, whether it be live or a recording. I feel successful because I’ve gotten to go places and meet people and experience parts of the world that if I’d lived an “ordinary” life I probably wouldn’t have.

Playing guitar has always been my solace. As a confused and angry young man I’d gotten myself into trouble and ended up doing prison time. Fortunately for me I was able to play guitar over those years of incarceration. Success to me is having been able to go from that low point to joining a band and getting to make records and tour. I never thought I’d have that opportunity after such a rocky start to adulthood. I feel blessed and am thankful.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Death. Abuse. My little brother in a casket.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’ve toyed with the idea of writing an autobiography but just typing those words just made me cringe. Who am I really? Why would anyone care? The idea makes me feel narcissistic and self absorbed.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To inspire. To evoke a feeling or thought.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

…

https://www.facebook.com/SolaceBand/
https://diedrunk.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral
https://www.bluesfuneral.com/

Solace, The Brink (2019)

It’s not yet dawn. My coffee is lousy this morning. The medium roast has too much light in this grind. It’s bullshit on a grand scale. To console myself, I’ve put a Monster Magnet t-shirt in a cart on the Napalm Records webstore. Will I buy it? I don’t own a current Monster Magnet t-shirt, and it doesn’t have cartoon boobs on it, so there’s a halfway-decent chance. Won’t make the coffee taste better, but sometimes one needs to take drastic action to improve a life situation.

“Solid Gold Hell” isn’t the highest-profile cover on Monster Magnet‘s A Better Dystopia (review here), the curated-covers outing that bears the stamp of founding frontman Dave Wyndorf no less than an original release might, but it sure feels relevant. The hook? “I’m getting really used to living in this solid gold hell.” Set to Joe Tait art with roaches in the War Room, a Never Say Die pilot, the ever-present Bullgod and a willfully Boschian orgy, there’s no shortage of information being thrown at the viewer/listener, and obviously that is the intent. The overload is part of the hell. For further evidence, look pretty much anywhere.

By my probably-wrong tally, this is the fourth lyric video that has seen Wyndorf and Tait in collaboration on what seems to be an ongoing if somewhat obscure narrative. Tell you what — they wanna do the whole record, then in the parlance of our times, I’m here for it. Beats sitting here with this second cup of my lousy coffee almost buying a shirt and being distracted by death counts and hacks on Twitter.

I’m saying if you’ve got that restless-existence-syndrome, “Solid Gold Hell” might point you in the right direction. It’s not the Kool-Aid Man smashing through the walls of our universe, letting out a “oh yeah!” and taking everybody along for a ride to Planet Sugar Rush — I had a dream last night where I told someone, “I don’t eat bread”; that’s a true story — but you go ahead and take three minutes and escape your terrible brain for a little bit. Facebook told me it’s your birthday, so you deserve no less.

Fuck this coffee. Dawn’s starting.

Enjoy:

Monster Magnet, “Solid Gold Hell” (The Scientists cover) lyric video

Frontman Dave Wyndorf says:

I’m a huge fan of The Scientists and I just love the hell out of this song. It’s hypnotic, dark and sexual with a unique and amazing groove. In a cooler world we’d hear stuff like this blasting out of everyone’s speakers. I’d love to hear Billie Eilish take a crack at this one…”

Regarding the video, he continues:

“Joe Tait’s art is so damned interesting… Where else can one find Hieronymus Bosch, Pam Grier, Cold War Soviet monuments, the Dr. Strangelove war room, astronauts, dinosaurs AND rockers all in the same video?”

Says Joe Tait:

“Two great tastes that taste particularly great together for me because in this part of our unfolding saga, the Bull God embraces the great swamp rage of The Scientists in a version of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights! Art by me. Script and direction with me in collaboration with the glorious Dave Wyndorf!”

Order A Better Dystopia HERE: https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/monstermagnet

MONSTER MAGNET is:
Dave Wyndorf – Vocals, Guitar
Phil Caivano – Guitar
Garret Sweeny – Guitar
Alec Morton – Bass
Bob Pantella – Drums

Monster Magnet, “Learning to Die” (Dust cover) lyric video

Monster Magnet, “Motorcycle (Straight to Hell)” (Table Scraps cover) lyric video

Monster Magnet, “Mr. Destroyer” (Poobah cover) lyric video

Monster Magnet website

Monster Magnet on Thee Facebooks

Monster Magnet on Twitter

Monster Magnet on Instagram

Monster Magnet at Napalm Records

Napalm Records on Thee Facebooks

This interview begins in medias res because Dave Wyndorf begins in medias res. He’s going, and it’s up to the rest of us to keep up. Good luck.

Somehow this image of the Monster Magnet founder and frontman is iconic in my head: he’s sitting in a dimly-lit kitchen in Red Bank, New Jersey, smoking and smirking at the state of rock and roll. For sure, rock and roll isn’t dead — and anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t paying enough attention — but rock’s place at the head of rebelliousness in popular culture is long since gone. Wyndorf knows this and he’s got the stories behind him to prove it. Over the last 30 years, his band has been up, down and everywhere in between. He’s dug his own holes and he’s powertripped like no one else. Monster Magnet‘s legacy is testament to restlessness as much as relentless creativity.

These have been grim times for restless musicians. Monster Magnet‘s new covers record, A Better Dystopia (review here), might be a manifestation of that restlessness. It comes three years after their last studio offering,  Mindfucker (review here), so they were due for something, and they’d already redux’ed two of their older albums. Unless they were gonna go make a new Spine of God (reissue review here) to mark its 30th year — which would be suitably bold and potentially disastrous in kind — or toss out a live album like everyone else, with little point to releasing an album they can’t tour, they were kind of stuck. One should note the Acid Reich demos recently released, that project featuring John McBain, Tim Cronin and Wyndorf, who discusses it here as well. Still, maybe A Better Dystopia is a gimme for the fans. Fine. I’m a fan.

However, even as a fan, I can’t really expect you to watch all 86 minutes of this interview. It’s great if you do — Wyndorf takes modern heavy metal to task for sucking, talks politics a bit, recording that Dust track, the pandemic, the loss of Brighton Bar in Long Branch, and a ton more. It’s an awesome interview, and having spoken to him however many times over the years, I expected no less, but I know you’ve got a life to live. If you skip through, or do it not all at once, however you go, he’s a mad genius and while I don’t necessarily agree with him across the board on everything brought up here, you’ll find he’s singular in both his ability to put the entire world in its place and his drive to do so at a moment’s notice.

I hope you enjoy:

Monster Magnet, A Better Dystopia interview with Dave Wyndorf, June 25, 2021

Monster Magnet‘s A Better Dystopia is out now on Napalm Records. More info at the links.

Monster Magnet, “Learning to Die” (Dust cover) lyric video

Monster Magnet, “Motorcycle (Straight to Hell)” (Table Scraps cover) lyric video

Monster Magnet, “Mr. Destroyer” (Poobah cover) lyric video

Monster Magnet website

Monster Magnet on Thee Facebooks

Monster Magnet on Twitter

Monster Magnet on Instagram

Monster Magnet at Napalm Records

Napalm Records on Thee Facebooks