Mini Review: Monster Magnet construct a monument to apocalyptic excess with their 2004 LP 'Monolithic Baby!'
Lords of the underworld, Monster Magnet had their first taste of mainstream success with their 1995 LP Dopes To Infinity, a swirling miasma of colossal stoner metal influenced by pulpy science fiction and left to marinate in a simmering acid bath of illicit pleasures. Fast forward nearly 10 years and Monster Magnet had garnered various accolades and widespread acclaim for their progressively more polished but undeniably gritty and uncompromising take on heavy psychedelic hard rock across several subsequent albums.Â
Responding to a decade's worth of seismic cultural shifts, Monolithic Baby! was birthed into a post-consumerist world saturated with high-gloss hedonism. Head Magnet Dave Wyndorf built upon the foundation crafted during the band's notoriously debauched Las Vegas recording session for 1998's Powertrip in which the band indulged in every aspect of rock n roll excess, emerging with an album that continued to both embrace the high-dollar extravagance of millennial MTV and deliver thoughtful commentary on the death of art and originality at the hand of unchecked capitalist machinations. Monolithic Baby! is easily Monster Magnet's most accessible album but it's also the most subversive in their catalog, a wild ride into a blistering apocalypse crackling with neon electricity and casual fatalism.
Long out of print, Napalm Records stepped up to the plate in 2022 to finally repress this monumental slab of wax. Available on vinyl via Amazon and streaming on Spotify. Follow Monster Magnet on Instagram.