Like any warm blooded teen, I found Monster Magnet through the ubiquitous Powertrip. The album took the airwaves by storm with its dense psychedelic glam rock and its two hits. Powertrip had  a fun video mocking rap videos and their excesses. Space Lord smoulders with that jagged acoustic guitar that travels to Vegas with that suitcase full of uppers, downers, quarts of rum and tequila, a galaxy of coloured pills and bags of grass.

Then they sorta faded back to the their loving niche. I was hooked with them, though, and went for Dopes to infinity. Once I heard Negasonic Teenage Warhead, something clicked: I actully knew them from 120 minutes! The video taped on an old VHS compilation I made years before!

Monster Magnet are interlinked with comics. When I heard MODOK being namedropped in Baby Gotterdamerung, I kinda squealed. Turns out Dave Wyndorf is a massive comics fan, and the references are never forced into the flow of the tracks.

I reckon there’s a big love for Jack Kirby’s massive space lore. Kirby’s drawings, both for Marvel and DC, where always things of wonder and you could relate the love Monster Magnet has for the expansive, eerie darkness of the cosmos, to their stoner-friendly music.

I lost track of them for a while. No reason, I simply stopped following them. Until Last Patrol came out. The artwork was insanely cool, and the first track I heard was Last Patrol, a nine minute epic that feels it could make ol’ Jack Kirby proud. As busy as it feels, every instrument has its own orbit around Wyndorf’s terrific vocals. Listening to this track late at night, with all lights off and simply idling away on bed its a moment of peace I’ve missed for a long while.

-Sam J. Valdés López