Monster Magnet A Better Dystopia 2LP

Take a trip inside the mind of psychedelic rock legend Dave Wyndorf with Monster Magnet's A Better Dystopia - a delightfully psychotic selection of proto-metal and late-era psych songs that fit the band like a glove!

With wonderfully obscure song choices and excellent sequencing, the mighty Magnet pay homage to some of their favorite songs of all time, crafting another exciting and unique listening experience like what they've become famous for. While the album marks a new frontier for Monster Magnet as their first covers record, this is not your typical set of standards released to pass time.

Wyndorf is at the top of his game on A Better Dystopia - howling, crooning, speaking... whatever it takes to get the emotional message of these very special tunes across, delivering each lyric in his own inimitable style. Musicians Phil Caivano, Bob Pantela, Garrett Sweeney and Alec Morton own the sound on A Better Dystopia - vintage and old school, dense and heavy, with searing fuzz leads and pounding bass and drums all played in a deft style that's almost been lost in modern music.

Drop the needle on any song, and A Better Dystopia comes up winning. The album opens with "The Diamond Mine," as Dave Wyndorf recites a classic monologue by Dave Diamond, an American radio DJ whose programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s helped popularize many psychedelic and acid rock bands. At this point the real trip begins, as the opening chords of the Hawkind classic "Born To Go" gear up for launch. Tracks like standout "Mr. Destroyer" (Poo-Bah) boast swaggering riffs and swirling vocals, spurring visions of some untold Freak revolution - or perhaps dinosaurs battling on a burning planet at the end of time - creating a perfect blend of hard rock and psychedelia. Feverish "Motorcycle (Straight To Hell)" (Table Scraps) is pure punk fury of the old school tradition, evoking a cross between Iggy Pop and Motörhead as Wyndorf wails, "I'm gonna drive it straight to HELL!"

Falling even further down the mind-bending rabbit hole, Magnet offers their stunning, whirlwind take on the often-overlooked hard rock classic "Learning To Die" (Dust) and a masterful version the Stooges meets Goth epic, "Solid Gold Hell" (The Scientists). The album closes with a nuclear cover of Morgen's "Welcome To The Void," inviting you to restart the ride again and again. Take a sonic journey to another time and space and experience what has made Monster Magnet tick since day one with A Better Dystopia!

Heavy psych combo Monster Magnet has kept the third eye of the world open for over three decades and, in all that time, remained remarkably consistent in their output. There are no duds among their 11 studio albums. Which only makes the quiet indifference that tends to greet their work all the more frustrating. The group's latest full-length A Better Dystopia continues this unbroken streak of greatness. It's an appropriately beastly work. Every guitar riff weighs a metric ton, and the rhythm section sounds as if their instruments were constructed from marble and animal skin. Snarling through it all like a perma-fried prophet is Dave Wyndorf. The New Jersey icon spins yarns of cosmic destruction, salvation through psychedelics and tales of otherworldly conflicts that will have Lemmy and Neil Peart grinning wildly from the beyond. Vinyl is the perfect vehicle for this album. There's no better way to get completely lost in the garish visions that Joe Tait created for the gatefold sleeve and to ecstatically run one's fingers over the etching on side four.