I have to admit that I was a little bummed out when I first listened to the new album from Mos Generator, Electric Mountain Majesty. The album features some bad ass cover art and not being familiar with the band, I expected the music to match the artwork; something heavy and doomy as fuck. What we have instead are 10 tracks of Monster Magnet worshipping stoner metal. There are some solid doom moments on Electric Mountain Majesty and the overall sound is great, if you can disassociate the music from the cover art.
When you hold Mos Generator up against their stoner metal contemporaries, they actually sound quite good. The singer has a heavy Dave Wyndorf influence, but there's some Wino Weinrich and Paul Stanley in there too. The guitars are fuzzy, the riffs are everything you'd expect from a doom/stoner band and the hooks are present in abundance. I don't know much about these guys, but I assume they set out to make a classic rock and roll record and they came pretty close. Upon repeat listens, the album is actually pretty killer. The trio from Washington state just write really good rock songs. That's rare in the world of underground 70's inspired stoner metal. It's nice to hear a straightforward approach once in a while.
Overall, the album is a little too upbeat for my tastes and there's a reason I got bored with my mid-90's Monster Magnet albums fairly quickly. This is good driving music, but it's not something that I would keep in heavy rotation at the Fortress of Doom. I would absolutely check these guys out live and I'll keep an eye on them to see what they're up to in the future. I just hope next time they don't dupe me with the album cover.
Electric Mountain Majesty will be released stateside on April 15, 2014 on Listenable Records.
When you hold Mos Generator up against their stoner metal contemporaries, they actually sound quite good. The singer has a heavy Dave Wyndorf influence, but there's some Wino Weinrich and Paul Stanley in there too. The guitars are fuzzy, the riffs are everything you'd expect from a doom/stoner band and the hooks are present in abundance. I don't know much about these guys, but I assume they set out to make a classic rock and roll record and they came pretty close. Upon repeat listens, the album is actually pretty killer. The trio from Washington state just write really good rock songs. That's rare in the world of underground 70's inspired stoner metal. It's nice to hear a straightforward approach once in a while.
Overall, the album is a little too upbeat for my tastes and there's a reason I got bored with my mid-90's Monster Magnet albums fairly quickly. This is good driving music, but it's not something that I would keep in heavy rotation at the Fortress of Doom. I would absolutely check these guys out live and I'll keep an eye on them to see what they're up to in the future. I just hope next time they don't dupe me with the album cover.
Electric Mountain Majesty will be released stateside on April 15, 2014 on Listenable Records.