Monster Magnet ‘A Better Dystopia’ Review: psych rockers pay tribute to their cult influences with bombastic results on new collection of cover songs.

What’s a restless musical genius to do when stuck at home during a pandemic? If you’re Monster Magnet frontman and mastermind Dave Wyndorf, you get the band back in the studio and craft sonic escapism for both yourself and your fans.

And that’s exactly the case with A Better Dystopia, (out May 21 via Napalm Records) the band’s first full album of covers. And in true Monster Magnet fashion, the group eschew traditional musical influences, instead digging deep into 60’s and 70’s obscurities that better fit with their eclectic nature and mish mashing of genres.

Click here for my new interview with Wyndorf discussing the new album

As such, there’s a good chance many listeners won’t be familiar with some of the song choices, which in many ways makes A Better Dystopia sound like an original Monster Magnet album, which should please their fanbase just fine.

The album kicks off with The Diamond Mine, a trippy monologue by DJ Dave Diamond, a prominent figure and proponent of classic psychedelic rock, which morphs into Hawkwind’s Born to Go, powered by a plowing riff, blistering solos and Wyndorf at his bellowing best.

The wonderfully named Epitaph for a Head is up next, and the JD Blackfoot number is peppered with shrieking slide guitar and Wyndorf in full carnival barker mode, while The Scientists’ Solid Gold Hell gets an ominous doom metal makeover, with tribal tom tom drums and a hallucinogenic riff hanging in the air like a opiate haze.

The group give a nod to metal progenitors Pentagram on the appropriately titled Be Forewarned, which is one of the album’s most potent and melodramatic moments, featuring a main riff that recalls the classic 1967 Batman theme with more sinister overtones.

Poo-bah’s Mr. Destroyer gets a Stooges-style makeover, with pummeling guitar and echoplex vocals and accented bursts of wah-wah, while the stop-start dynamics of Jerusalem’s When The Wolf Sits (another great title) proves a fine showcase for Wyndorf’s vocals, with lyrics that could have been written by the man himself (you need a lover/I need a trip/We need each other/ Before we slip).

The album switches gears for Death (The Pretty Things), a dirgey ballad tempered by a rubber band riff, funereal organ and sitar accents, with a doomed romantic vibe that the group pull off with aplomb, conjuring cinematic imagery and a gloriously gloomy mood.

Caveman’s It’s Trash gets a manic garage rock on steroids makeover, while the Table Scrap’s Motorcycle (Straight to Hell) rides a krautrock groove that makes for the album’s most insistent earworm.

The album closes with the one-two punch of Learning To Die (Dust) and Welcome To The Void (Morgen), with the former’s loud-quiet dynamics and frequent tempo shifts providing counterpoint to the latter, an epic space rock journey that sounds like every iconic psychedelic band tossed into a blender and spat out into the cosmos.

A Better Dystopia isn’t just an engaging set of covers, it’s also another solid and essential entry in Monster Magnet’s catalog, with songs picked not just because they rock, but surely because their morbid titles and nihilistic lyrics reflect the non-stop nightmare of 2020 and beyond.

As we slowly return to some form of normalcy, Monster Magnet’s caustic take on forgotten rock gems is a reason to find resolve in times of duress, and a none-too-subtle reminder that the 21st century is an ever-mutating shit show. But as the title says, a dystopia is always more tolerable with a kick-ass soundtrack to drown out your blues.