MONSTER MAGNET ”Spine Of God” ”Tab”

MONSTER MAGNET
”Spine Of God”
”Tab”
(Napalm)
When I first got track of MONSTER MAGNET back in the 90s I had no idea what to expect. I wasn’t that crazy about the whole psychedelic thing. And then I heard MONSTER MAGNET on Headbanger’s Ball I think and boy was I hooked. I had to look this band up. Back then it wasn’t as easy as accessing your Spotify account. You had to actually go out and buy the music physically. And in such a small place as Helsingborg it was quite hard to track down the CDs. But once I managed to do so I was introduced to a new world musically.
“Spine Of God” (4/5) has some really cool songs that really put the groove in groove. Like I mentioned, I had not heard anything like this before and at first I didn’t know what to think of it. But with time I kinda grew into it and no it is a classic in my collection. Perhaps not as melody driven as latter day material but still a mile stone in both MONSTER MAGNET’s discography and in my collection.
By the time “Tab” (4/5) was released I had kinda moved on from MONSTER MAGNET. I cannot honestly remember if I even bought it when it was released (I don’t think I did) but I know that I had moved on to more stoner rock oriented bands. Listening to this 4 tracker today I kinda regret missing out on it. The title track is a 30 minute plus escapade into a fuzzed out landscape. Kinda makes me realize what it could be like to be strung out on Peyote in the Californian desert. In hindsight this is classic MONSTER MAGNET.
These two re-issues show a band in progress. From the basicness of “Spine Of God” to the more indulgent “Tab”. Anders Ekdahl