MONSTER MAGNET - 4-Way Diablo
October 15, 2007, 17 years ago
(SPV)
Got this the same time as the new Moonspell and both are strangely unwelcome even before the spins start. And dealing with this one, well, the title is horrible but the cover art is Motorhead good. Musically, yer back to a confirmation of the first sentiment – Monster Magnet’s sound has outstayed its welcome, this idea of strumming loudly a bunch of old garage rock patterns with semi-shock/faux-Sixx ‘n’ Simmons soundbites as lyrics… I’m just not caring. Extreme production used to prop up Dave’s simple songs, but the crackly or burbly psych sounds have been sanitized away in these SPV years to the point of irritation at the incongruousness of this “dangerous” band picking the most corporate tones one could imagine. All you’re left with is boring da-da-da music and the force of Dave’s personality as a lyricist and a vocalist. He’s good at both, but the verbose, thespian substance of four or five previous records, especially Power Trip (personal fave), is enough to sustain. Wouldn’t call him a one trick pony, but it’s getting close to that, because he seems to be addressing only the hard psych authenticity (again, the rudimentary songwriting, not the knob-job) of the expensive records in his collection, which are mostly simple, predictable, strummery and non-riffy.
