It’s a Satanic drug thing, Part 1:
Monster Magnet: 25…Tab
Glitterhouse Records, 1991
My copy: Napalm Records, 2017
I wasn’t into Monster Magnet in the early to mid ‘90s, and I don’t recall knowing anyone who was into them, either. By the time Monster Magnet got big in the late ‘90s, I had already moved away from “modern music,” so long story short – I was never a Monster Magnet fan. Until now! Within the past few months I have belatedly discovered this New Jersey band, formed in the late ‘80s by a group of psych explorers who seemed to have walked out of the early ‘70s. In particular, I am only interested in the earliest era of Monster Magnet, which is to say the first few releases (specifically: one album and two Eps), which featured John McBain on guitar.
This, 25…Tab, is one of those Eps, with the caveat that the EP is actually longer than most LPs! The track “Tab” alone is over 30 minutes long, putting the limits of analog technology to the test; happily, this 2017 repress on 180 gram vinyl sounds great, save for the fact that it’s pressed a little quietly. The ideal LP side length is around 20 minutes; any more “data” on the side and something has to suffer in quality, usually either the bass level or the volume level. While the bass is nice and loud on the repress, you really have to crank the sucker up – but then, your only other option on vinyl is the original German release from 1993, and I doubt that sounds any better.
I’m getting ahead of myself. This EP is great! It sounds so much like Hawkwind at times that you could be fooled into thinking it had been released 20 years earlier. This is what really appeals to me about Monster Magnet; they did heavy psych rock with vintage equipment. I don’t know much about what Monster Magnet did after, but their self-titled 1990 EP (inexplicably only released in Germany…and to this day not reissued in the US!), this Tab EP, and finally their debut album Spine Of God, are all pretty damn great.
Not “heavy metal” per se, Monster Magnet is more heavy rock in the vein of the early 1970s, with lots of space rock and psych touches. It’s pretty awesome, and these guys were in for the whole trip – the subtitle of this Random Record Review, “It’s a Satanic Drug Thing,” comes from the back cover of Spine Of God: “It’s a Satanic drug thing…you wouldn’t understand.”
The entirety of Side 1 is taken up with “Tab,” a 30-minute headtrip of sonic effects and various rants from “lead singer” Dave Wyndoff, all of it anchored by the mantra-like bass of John McBain (who does not play his customary electric guitar on this track). I’ve played this song a lot and you really can get lost in it; I once saw it compared to the freak-out psych section in the middle of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” just taken to an epic length, and that’s actually pretty accurate. Just imagine that going on for about 30 minutes.
Side 2 gets into more “standard” song forms, starting off with the other title track, “25,” which is more Hawkwind than Hawkwind:
This one features McBain on guitar and boy does it rip – probably one of my favorite Monster Magnet songs. This track cuts hard into the following number, “Longhair,” which is an instrumental with a strutting, freak-flag-flying sort of vibe, and then the EP ends – or at least the original release ended – with “Longhair,” a mellow track with overdubbed McBain guitar that is the closest thing to a “normal” song on the EP. This 2017 vinyl reissue tags on a live take of “Spine of God,” presumably from 1990 – the track isn’t even mentioned on the LP jacket – and it’s so bootleg you can hear the people in the audience talking about it, one of them even saying, “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were recording!”
Overall, a great “EP” that is really more so an LP, and the cover art must also be mentioned – an appropriation of a vintage science illustration, with Monster Magnet’s mascot the Bulldog added to it. The print job of the LP sleeve is great; the colors really pop, and also they made it a gatefold, but the inside is just a blurry photo of Monster Magnet on stage. Check it out, just be sure to crank up the volume.
Acid Reich: Mistress Of The Perpetual Harvest
Cool Beans, 1989 (original cassette release)
My copy: Mental Experience/Galactic Archives, 2021
Speaking of Monster Magnet…man, I like this obscure release a lot more than I probably should. And also I consider myself fortunate to have a copy; per the label, this will never be reissued. So what we have here is a late ‘80s recording by the proto-Monster Magnet – Dave Wyndorf, John McBain, and Tim Cronin – augmented with two additional musicians from the underground New Jersey scene. According to an insigtful interview printed on a flyer that is placed inside the sleeve – an inverview conduced by psych musician The Plastic Crimewave – this material was recorded during downtime in a home studio in between working at local record and comic book stores.
I find myself fascinated by this late ‘80s New Jersey scene that Monster Magnet was part of; it’s just super cool to think of these longhaired dudes in their 20s coming home from a day selling comics and then breaking out their vintage guitars and Orange amps and hitting record on the 4-track…playing music that was entirely out of fashion in the late ‘80s.
The origin of Acid Reich is it was just another “band” these guys would record as, usually releasing stuff on cassette tape on a “label” run by Cronin. Plastic Crimewave got hold of the original tape and it was used as the source for this vinyl LP release…which sounds a lot better than you’d expect, but be aware this is certainly lo-fi: the drums are a pounding tribal din and the guitars are more scrappy than heavy. But man it is heavy acid rock of the highest order, sounding more like an underground heavy rock bootleg from 1971 than anything from 1989, and of course I mean that as a compliment.
They also don’t short-change you on material: the LP runs around 40 minutes, the perfect LP length, but there are only 5 songs on it! Side 1 features the awesome “Black Sun,” which features echo-treated Tim Cronin endlessly shouting “Black sun…in my head!” like a madman over a lo-fi metal jam, and then unexpectedly we have an epic-length cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun,” always one of my favorite Floyd songs. But man, Waters and company even at their most “far-out 1969 Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” never got this far out; it starts off somewhat similar to the Floyd original before heading into the outer reaches of heavy lo-fi psych metal.
Side 2 is more of the same – there’s an Acid Reich “Theme,” which is along the lines of “Black Sun,” and a heavy instrumental psych-metal-fest called “Revenge of Tim Boo Ba,” before things close out with a sarcastic take on “Amazing Grace,” which seems to feature Wyndorf on vocals. Oh and I should mention, as with “Tab,” John McBain plays bass throughout the entirety of Mistress Of The Perpetual Harvest (a local rocker named Shaune Kelley plays guitar on the LP), which is a shame, as McBain’s guitar tone was phenomenal – I mean, just check out “Nod Scene” from Spine Of God.
As mentioned, I contacted Guerssen, the parent label of Mental Experience, to see if they were going to repress this LP, and they responded that they were not going to. So, I went on a hunt, determined to get my own phsyical copy for an affordable price. I was lucky enough to, but given how obscure the album is, you might have to resort to the digital release on the Acid Reich Bandcamp page.
Spiral Shades: Hypnosis Sessions
RidingEasy Records, 2014
A little over twenty years ago I became a hardcore Black Sabbath fan, Ozzy-era only of course, mostly due to the awesome reviews by The Seth Man on Unsung. I bought the Black Sabbath CD box set when it came out in 2004, and still have it, and over the years I’ve gotten a few of their albums on vinyl, but prices have always been too high. And besides, the music is what matters, and Ozzy-era Sabbath is still some of my favorite music.
But while the first four albums are generally the most loved by fans, I’ve always been a fan of Sabotage, Sabbath’s 1975 LP that saw them retaining their sound while bringing in progressive elements…not to mention a lot of sonic trickery. I mean “Megalomania” is by far my favorite Black Sabbath song, a 9-minute track that starts off dreamy before going off the deep end into sonic FX-ridden riff heaven (or hell), not to mention some serious cowbell action. Why this track is not better known than “War Pigs” is a mystery for the ages, but whatever – 1975 Sabbath was the best.
Instead of continnuing in this pace, Sabbath unfortunately delivered Technical Ecstasy the following year, a muddled album that retained the progressive rock vibe but ruined everything with a generic “rock” approach. (And yes, that review I linked to is one I wrote for Unsung over twenty years ago!) But man, this 2014 album, produced by two guys – who weren’t even together in the same country when they recorded the album! – is the true followup to Sabotage that Black Sabbath never gave us.
With a guy named Filip Petersen, in Norway, handling all the guitars, and a guy named Kuhshal Bhadra, in India(!), handling the vocals and drums, Spiral Shades is a studio group if ever there was one…and that’s fine with me. I’ve never been a fan of live albums. I like to hear the studio technology taken to its limits, and like Monster Magnet, Spiral Shades has done the same thing – taken a vintage metal sound to its limits. This album truly sounds like it could have been recorded and released in 1975, and again that is a compliment.
And I haven’t even mentioned Bhadra’s vocals. There is a whole scene that’s developed in the past several years of Sabbath-worshipping “doom” metallers who have their own ersatz Ozzie on vocals…but folks, Kuhshal Bhadra is more Ozzy than Ozzy. This dude has Osbourne’s sound and delivery down pat, and there are tracks here you could play to someone who isn’t even really gullible and fool them into thinking it’s actually a Black Sabbath song. It’s truly incredible.
And not only that, but the songs themselves have the Sabbath sound, while not coming off like ripoffs or repeats of what Sabbath did; Hypnosis Sessions really does sound like a true followup to Sabotage, the riff centering all the songs in true Iommi fashion, with the band sometimes going for slow-build epics and other times going for head-banging riffathons. So far as the latter go, my favorite track on the album would be one of those short head-bangers, “Wizardry,” which features some cool fx on the guitar:
Coming in at nearly an hour, Hypnosis Sessions was released as a double album, meaning it’s the opposite scenario as with Monster Magnet’s 25…Tab vinyl release. Since each side comes in at around 12 to 14 minutes, there are no issues with lack of bass or volume. The album sounds great, and vinyl would be the ideal medium to play it in, but it does bum me that RidingEasy got cheap and didn’t release it as a gatefold. This means that both LPs are jammed into a standard jacket, thus ensuring that some day the seams will split.
Spiral Shades took nearly ten years to record a followup, the digital-only Revival; I’ve only listened to it once, but it is very much along the lines of Hypnosis Sessions, and it’s a damn mystery why RidingEasy didn’t keep them on the roster and release this one on vinyl as well.
Saltpig: Saltpig
Heavy Psych Sounds, 2024
My favorite release on this list, Saltpig came out via the wonderfully-named Heavy Psych Sounds, a Rome-based label that focuses on, you’ll be shocked to know, heavy psych rock, metal, doom metal, and etc. There are a ton of artists on this label and I highly recommend you check them out. Also they do quality vinyl releases, and it was in this fashion that I discovered Saltpig’s debut LP…which turned out to be my best music discovery of 2024, and certainly the best “new release” I’ve heard in perhaps decades.
I’m always buying music and listening to music, but it’s all old stuff, if you know what I mean. I realized a few months ago that there had to be new music out there that was worth listening to, and further I realized it was we hardcore rock junkies who were doing a disservice to these new groups – we’re so busy buying “Very Good Plus” copies of old records on Discogs that we are oblivious to new music that might be just as good.
And Saltpig is certainly a case in point. These guys are awesome, coming off like an unholy mix of Black Sabbath and The Stooges...maybe after the two had sat through a triple-feature of horror movies at the local drive-in. Like Spiral Shades, we have here a two-man group: Mitch Davis on vocals, guitars, and production, and Fabio Alessandrini on drums. Man, these guys are phenomenal: this album is so great that I’ve played it constantly since I got it. Usually I play records only a few times and then move on to the next new thing, but I’ve played Saltpig over and over. In fact I’m playing it again right now!
On the label page I linked to above, Saltpig’s music is described as a direction early 1970s proto-metal might have gone if it had not evolved “towards greater precision, bigger drums and more robust production.” I read this after listening to the album a few times, and I have to say, this description really sums up their sound. One can easily imagine that this would be the direction heavy music went in the early ‘70s. There is a sort of lo-fi murk to Saltpig, yet at the same time the production is phenominal, with a lot of buried effects; it’s a headphone album as well as a “blast on your stereo” album.
Side 1 is comprised of 5 tracks, each in the 3-5 minute span, centered around a Sabbath approach but offering a lot of variety. Oh and I forgot to mention, but a key to Saltpig’s success is Mitch Davis’s vocals; his is not an Ozzy wail, or a death metal grunt…his vocals are top-notch. The dude actually sings, which is what brings me back to the Stooges comparison…I mean, Iggy Pop/Stooge had one of the greatest rock voices ever, and Davis seems to have taken his inspiration from that area instead of a more traditional “doom metal” approach.
That said, Davis’s vocals are usually buried beneath FX and other trickery; as mentioned there is a very cool murk to Saltpig, lending to its “occult” vibe. But this is a drive-in monsterama kind of occult (ie the best kind), with side 1’s subjects ranging from demons to burning witches. Starting off with “Satan’s War,” Saltpig hits the ground running, and the way the 5 songs blend into one another, side 1 almost comes off like a continnuous piece. “Satan’s War” promptly displays their penchant for buried effects, with lots of sound effects buried beneath the music – even after listening to the album so many times, I still am surprised by the errant noises when listening on my headphones. “Demon” and “Burning Water” are aggressive, riffing numbers, and “When You Were Dead,” with its grungier, more lo-fi metal-punk vibe, is a harbinger of Side 2. “Burn The Witch” opens with a horror movie sample and almost sounds like ‘80s goth metal in the chorus.
Flip it over to side 2 and it’s another story entirely...one single track, “1950” (the title is actually the length of the track!), a mind-blower of blown-out amps and screamed, fx-ridden vocals, where Saltpig just rides a riff into infinity. It sounds like the Funhouse-era Stooges looking into the future and doing a shorter, faster take on Sleep’s “Dopesmoker.” Speaking (again) of the Stooges, if you are a fan of that band, then you’ve gone down the murky roads of bootlegs and unofficial releases, and it’s incredible how Saltpig has exactly replicated that sound with “1950;” it sounds like some track lifted off Heavy Liquid or Rough Power or one of the innumerable other Stooges boots.
For nearly twenty minutes we have this RIFF, which rolls upon itself over and over, before slowing down a bit for (what passes for) the chorus, and throughout it all Mitch Davis’s voice is lost in the sonic din. Man, it’s incredible! “1950” is probably my favorite “new” song in years and years and years. The track is so great that Saltpig even made a music video for it!
I was so blown away by Saltpig that I actually contacted the band throught their website, telling them how much I enjoyed the album. I was nearly as blown away when I received a response…in which they told me that they are putting “the finishing touches” on their followup album! Folks, I can’t tell you how amped up I am to hear another Saltpig album. I mean, think of it. This is the first time I’ve been excited to hear a new album since…when? Maybe not since the ‘90s!
Highly, highly recommended – I got the basic black vinyl pressing, but Heavy Psych Sounds offers various pressings at various prices, plus digital as well, so take your pick – just so long as you check it out.
Bloodsong: Season Of The Dead - Halloween '25
Digital release, 2025
Rounding out this review with a special mention of a new single release from Bloodsong, who I have raved about before – first about their Initium Meets Earth A.D. release (which I still listen to), and their later Season Of The Dead. The other day I got an email notice that Bloodsong had just put up a new song on Bandcamp, and I went over there immediately to check it out.
Coming in at 2 tracks, Season Of The Dead – Halloween ‘25 features remakes of earlier songs, and what’s notable is that this one-man band has now become a two-man band. (Two-man bands could almost be a theme of this post!) Main man I, Misanthrope has been joined by the awesomely-named “Dr. Anthony Fulci” on lead guitar, and the good doctor shreds it up on new mixes of “Season Of The Dead” and “I Want Your Blood.”
While both of these songs were great in their previous mixes, it must be said that Dr. Fulci brings something new to the table, in particular “I Want Your Blood,” which is here transformed into the greatest song Bloodsong has yet done. Like I said before, if you’ve worn out your Misfits and Samhain records, you need to look into Bloodsong; absolutely no band comes as close to capturing that mid-‘80s Samhain sound, while still offering something new and uniquely their own.
I think the only thing missing is a physical release of Bloodsong’s material…I’d love to have some of this stuff on vinyl. Hopefully I, Misanthrope and Dr. Anthony Fulci will continue to join forces and bring us a full album of heavy horror punk, but in the meantime this two-track single is perfect Halloween listening, so head over to Bandcamp and check it out!
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