(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

John Paul McBain started out in the ranks of the Skinhead Nation, a punk band from New York, but soon distanced himself from the movement and formed, with friends, Dog Of Mystery and The Smoking Pets. He began writing original material in Airport 75 (Tim Cronin on vocals, David Wyndorf on guitar, and himself on bass), based in Red Bank, a typical provincial town in New Jersey. Lizard Johnny dates from that period. The name Monster Magnet originated with Freak Shop USA (1989). The two songs made up their first single. Murder/ Tractor (Caroline, 1990) was the second.

Wyndorf (also a punk veteran, formerly of Shrapnel) and McBain drew inspiration from the outset from the acid-cosmic jams of the 1970s, Hawkwind in particular, going against the prevailing trends with their loquacious performances. The only document of those jams to make it onto vinyl is the sprawling Tab on the self-titled 1991 EP (for Glitterhouse). Only on cassette were Forget About Life (Cool Beans, 1989) and I'm High (Cool Beans, 1990) released, which also feature extended jams such as Needle Freak and Lizard Johnny.

Their early warhorses are collected in the 1990 recordings, namely the singles Freak Shop USA (Circuit) and Murder/Tractor (Primo Scree) and the self-titled mini-album (for Glitterhouse) with Lizard Johnny, Snake Dance, Nod Scene. Here the youngsters display a powerful and noisy rock, a heavy metal so raw and ungainly as to suggest the extinction of the genre.

Spine Of God (Primo Scree, 1991) is the album that consecrates them as heirs to psychedelic rock and renovators of heavy metal. On the one hand, mantras such as Pill Shovel and Ozium soar solemnly over clouds of guitar improvisations; on the other, melodic hard-rock pieces like Black Mastermind unleash granite riffs and martial syncopations before degenerating into long Hawkwind-style codas. With its alternation of spatial moans and rocky jamming, Spine Of God represents the ideal fusion of the two styles. Traces of hardcore fury in Medicine and Snake Dance testify to their geographical proximity to those tribes, but Wyndorf has already taken flight toward other horizons.

After the EP Evil (Glitterhouse), Ed Mundell replaced McBain. The album Superjudge (A&M, 1993) increases the heaviness of the sound. The starting point is often the music of Jimi Hendrix: both the atmospheric title-track, with its soul-blues litany and hypnotic cadence (with distortion in the foreground acting as a cosmic vibration), and Cyclops Revolution, with its contrast between sorrowful acoustic blues and solemn super-distortions (featuring a lacerating scream that seems to emerge from infernal depths), are blood relatives of Are You Experienced. And from not very distant sources springs the vigorous syncopated blues-rock of Twin Earth, Evil and Face Down. Everything is covered in mountains of distortion and shouted at the top of their lungs, the trademarks of Monster Magnet. Yet it is also always rousing music, whether in the magniloquent singing and hammering tribalism of Elephant Bell, or in the spatial effects and swirling riffs of Dinosaur Vacume, culminating in the eight-minute extra-galactic saraband of Brainstorm, propelled headlong by a feverish variant of the heaviest Black Sabbath riffs. With this record the “mind” period reaches its peak: Monster Magnet’s music is still very much a mental affair, even if from every track begins to ooze that “physicality” which will later take over.

The early Monster Magnet records are cathartic immersions in guitar distortion; the later ones will be exercises in collective noise.

Dopes To Infinity (A&M, 1995) is only apparently a Hawkwind-style album: the denser arrangements (48-track recording) and more eclectic instrumentation (sitar, mellotron, organ) actually make it something else entirely. I Control sounds more like grunge than Hawkwind. Wyndorf has assembled a thoroughly professional band (Ed Mundell on guitar, Joe Calandra on bass, and Jon Kleiman on drums) and is steering the sound toward the charts. The majestic hard rock of the title-track suggests they might aspire to be considered worthy heirs to ZZ Top among legions of truckers in the Deep South. Not surprisingly, the weakest tracks are the verbose and sprawling ones in his psychedelic style (such as Third Alternative), whereas the best are almost all anchored to catchy melodies and nearly all conceal a quotation from classic rock: Negasonic Teenage Warhead contains traces of Brave Ulysses by Cream; Look To Your Orb For The Warning has the solemn gait and mysterious mellotron of early King Crimson; Dead Christmas borrows something from the rhythm of Venus by Shocking Blue; King Of Mars deliberately slows down Iron Man by Black Sabbath...

After leaving Monster Magnet, McBain formed the Wellwater Conspiracy.

The trajectory toward a more physical than mental sound is completed by Powertrip (A&M, 1998), for which the band benefits from a dazzling production. Dave Wyndorf is at the peak of his vocal powers, a roaring shouter in the rhythm and blues tradition, and is well supported by the “ultra-heavy” yet agile guitar of Ed Mundell. Crop Circle opens in the same telluric and anarchic manner that was once the hallmark of the MC5, and Tractor wreaks similar havoc later on. The most vivid ghost is that of the Stooges, whose epic 1970 Monster Magnet replicate in the title-track. Echoes of Asheton and Iggy Pop recur in almost every track, culminating in the high-class garage rock of 19 Witches, cradled by a tribal rhythm and galactic guitars, not far from the nightmares of Amon Duul. The single Space Lord is a power ballad paying homage to Kiss (those cyclopean riffs) and Aerosmith (that raucous swagger). The somewhat trivial grunge of Bummer (seven minutes of stereotypes) is redeemed by the dramatic tension of Baby Gotterdamerung and the horror hallucination of Goliath And The Vampire, the two most experimental tracks. There is even room for a demonic delirium punctuated by organ, See You In Hell, a splendid revision of the Doors’ apocalyptic codes. Having abandoned their sometimes cloying psychedelic poses, Monster Magnet arrive at a compact, masculine, and mature sound that represents a new benchmark in the post-grunge era. The album also propels them into the sales charts.

Mundell also formed the Atomic Bitchwax.