Mondo Generator – Cocaine Rodeo – Review

Mondo Generator

Cocaine Rodeo (Southern Lord)
by Craig Regala

Hardcore hardrock’n’roll. Not specifically punk or metal (while it encompasses the same general urge of punk and bust-out power of metal) or nü metal crossover stuff, but rather an ass-kick that scoops up all power scoot available and churns it, balls it up, and lets it gel enough to hit the classic twisted forward propulsion groove of In My Head, Loose Nut or side one of My War-era Black Flag with the moral tone of Zeke. Obviously Mondo Generator is not a cop on said stuff, but the density, musicality, grooves and hammerdown/headfirst aura work the nerves similarly. This disc syncs up a shattered hard-ass acid rock (and the brutish side of prog rock that shared the same bed) like early Monster Magnet did, with tempos and forward motion associated with the two bands the leader of Mondo Generator (one Mr. Nick Oliveri) has done time with: Kyuss and the Dwarves.

The tunes are uniformly strong – the first cut, “13th Floor,” is also on the new Queens of the Stone Age (cut 9), a tune I’d thought was by Fatso Jetson. A pretty good guess, really, as those guys are part and parcel of the desert rock-via-generator-party that provided the mulch for Kyuss and the various personalities/artists of the “Desert Sessions” 10″s/CDs. Some of the textures and sounds I associate with the rougher “post-punk” bands of the mid-’80s and certain post-hardcore developments – the gritty tones and rumbling bottom – bring many cool bands to mind, not that this troop “sound” like ‘m, but hey, wouldn’t you like to see ‘m play with Craw, Rat at Rat R, Scratch Acid, B. Flag, Barkmarket and the Unsane? While that won’t happen, they could start driving East while Puny Human drives West and when they wreak in Kansas, well, they could do a week of shows and alter the local gene pool. A few other names involved with this are Brant Bjork (Kyuss, Fu Man-fuckin-‘Chu), Josh Homme (QOTSA, Kyuss), and Rob (Karma To Burn). Those are some good names, eh? First one to spot the Kansas riff wins a turtle.
(PO Box 291967 Los Angeles, CA 90029)