Review by Ian Savage
Monster Magnet are the epitome of the rock and roll ‘nearly-man’ band. Despite a tune on the soundtrack of one of the biggest films of the 1990s and support tours with Aerosmith, Marilyn Manson and Metallica, they’ve never quite escaped the underground to become the mainstream metal juggernaut they threatened to during their heyday. Despite this they have a fervent fan-base for their doomy stoner-rock stock-in-trade, many of whom will be keen to hear their first new offering in three years, and the first in two decades without long-standing guitarist Ed Mundell.
The opening portion of ‘Last Patrol’ is very much business as usual. The dreamy, hypnotic ‘I Live Behind The Clouds’ accelerates to the more upbeat and psychedelic 9-minute title track before laying back into the Eastern-tinged ‘Three Kingdoms’, which wouldn’t be totally out of place on a Led Zepplin platter. Over the following half-hour or so the band proudly display their collective influences whilst deftly blending them with the intangible Monster Magnet ‘something’: Hendrix-inspired guitar lines weave their way through ‘Paradise’; ‘Hallelujah’ is a stomping southern blues influenced highlight; ‘Mindless Ones’ sounds like a collision between MC5 and Black Sabbath; closer ‘Stay Tuned’ is a downbeat acoustic-led soundscape worthy of Hawkwind.
Although certainly genre-defying, ‘Last Patrol’ holds together as a single piece of work very well indeed – despite a couple of longer-than-average tracks and almost an hour’s run-time for just nine songs, it never drags and bears repeated listening even for a casual fan of the band. Whether this is the release that could finally propel MM into the rock ‘n’ roll stratosphere is debatable, but it’s an exceptionally strong collection of music which should deservedly further their career.
8 out of 10
Track listing:
- I Live Behind The Clouds
- Last Patrol
- Three Kingdoms
- Paradise
- Hallelujah
- Mindless Ones
- The Duke Of Supernature
- End Of Time
