Dopes to Infinity

by

Monster Magnet

Edit

This album is the reason I despise MTV and commercial radio. To think that I've lived my life for four years without this album, or even the knowledge of it's existance! If it hadn't been for Powertrip's radio play, I would have lived on never knowing that this band still existed. Every track on this album is infused with energy, and memorable in it's own right. This band opened for Marilyn Manson? In a just world, the situation would have been reversed. This band is all about energetic rock, and totally free of pretention and fake emo posturing. Try it, you'll like it... especially if you're like me, a music fan who's felt deserted by Metallica and Megadeth, and either disgusted or unimpressed by recent entries into the heavy music market.

...POWERTRIP and SPINE OF GOD, Monster Magnet delivered with DOPES TO INFINITY. Starting off with weird noises and stomping, sabbathtesque riffing, the title track welcomes you once again to the weird world of Dave Wyndorf. The magnet changed with every album but DOPES is, as another reviewer already pointed out their first steps in the later mass-appeal direction. The songs themselves are still spaced enough to satisfy fans of SPINE OF GOD and SUPERJUDGE but there is less disortion and the songwriting seems more focused. Is that a good thing? Less and no.

On one hand, DOPES is a great spaced-out listening experiences. Songs like "All friends and Kingdom come", "Third Alternative" or the mind-boggeling Doors tribute "Dead Christmas" are among the best Magnet songs ever written. Wyndorf is at his lyrical over-the-toppiest, telling us how he found "the heart of forever" but he's "never gonna tell you why!". The instrumentals "Ego, the living Planet" & "Theme from Masterburner" completely deliver, the first mentioned interrupted by Dave screaming "I talk to planets baby". The whole album is unique and beautiful crafted, every riff here just plain rocks.

On the other hand, this album sounds way too clear and produced to really get going ( like SPINE did ). Overproduction is the word, you'll be fighting against thinking how this may have sounded if they kept things a bit more, you know, basic. In short, DOPES is a polished Magnet, not yet as polished as POWERTRIP but still polished. Even though all the songs are 100% Wyndorf, there is actually very little to discover when compared to SPINE. I know I sound like a purist but hell, if a Band made a milestone like SOG, it's hard not to compare their other efforts to the one that is a pure classic. And from this POV, DOPES sounds like Disney stuff.

On it's own, the album rocks. But they could have done better. Dopes is still a great listen, in fact, if you're new to Monster Magnet, you should start with this album. It contains everything that makes Monster Magnet a great rockin' band. But SPINE was way more than just a brilliant album from a great rockin' band...