Mos Generator – Songs for Future Gods – Review

mosgenerator200Mos Generator

Songs for Future Gods (Small Stone)
By Craig Regala

Thick-riffed hard rocker from some lifers up west of Seattle. The guys in Mos Generator have done time in Mindfunk, Treepeople, and Voodoo Gearshift and know which end of the guitar to tickle. The music is hard-bore rocker stuff based in the kick ass mid-’70s roughed up with ’80s gut punch and a live action boot to the butt feel. Look at it as sharing a undergroundist/punk* club attack formed from the arena rock shared by the Stooges (generally boo’d), Aerosmith when they were riding the drug train, and Steppenwolf’s hefty biker blooze-rock moments all chopped and channeled for max utility. This formula’s got a couple decades of “rode hard, put up wet” to it; luckily it’s steeped in the tradition of the full-on band format, not that “backing a singer ” bullshit.

It wouldn’t mean dick on disc without decent tunes, and hell, you can grab a couple easy with one hand outta this tubful. “Lumbo Rock” moves like Lenny Kravitz and Slash giving the finger to the idea of airplay whilst tearing up a boogie with a quick harmony solo and a spinning back kick of a hook dropped onto a damn hear soulful (the ghost of Phil Lynott) chorus. “Wizards of the Prophecy Pen” splits the difference between Clutch and ZZ Top like up and comers Year Long Disaster have the past year, and the opener “Silver Olympus” sounds like they took a bet that they could write a fantastic tune for Kiss’ Rock and Roll Over, that is it has the ker-chunka energy Judas Priest’s Hell Bent for Leather.

Obviously, it helps to have a singer this good. In a hard rock trio, it’s necessary to have the melodic and textural top stroked by strong vocal lines to get tunes over; bombast isn’t enough. These guys have way too much groove to fall into the amped acid rock/punk crossover overload that’s primarily overdriven head music (no insult at all, just a different thing). The power-thud herein is underpinned by a bucketful of Grand Funk/grunge therein being ass-shaker stuff crunched into the fist-in-the-air headbanging beer-in-the-air yahoo! grit-grease I love like free whiskey. Small Stone seems to’ve developed a taste for this kinda thing: Witness Sasquatch’s second record, II, a fine one playing ball in the same field, as well as the Roadsaw disc that should drop right about now.
(www.smallstone.com)

*”All punk shall rock.” – Nicky Hellacopter