There is a condition in the task. And it is consisted of two monolithic words - Monster Magnet. The command of Dave Wyndorf that never stopped for any reason and for 25 years is one of the most wonderful, underrated and absolute rock bands. Each album is superb. Every concert of them (out of five, which I saw) is total trip. Monster Magnet are the new Hawkwind and the big world may not give a fuck about it but Dave also doesn’t give a fuck about the big world. Because he is much bigger than it and talks to planets, baby - up there, on the throne of Tarzan, King of Mars.

 

There's the concern before a new album by a personally important band, by one’s own heroes of which you are afraid they may trip. And just before you feel stupid of your own stupidity - bam! first new song two months ago - 'Watch Me Fade'. Wait, what? Baby Woodrose have tried for 15 years to sound like Monster Magnet in hippie version and now Monster Magnet have the same sound as Baby Woodrose. But it's great it! Playful tune, liquefied pink keyboards, purple haze and the unique voice of Dave. It's so solid and so jolly at the same time that you drop a happy tear out of joy.

 

There is the album in my player a month or something later. First track - 'She Digs That Hole'. Yes, but the anthem from 5 years ago here relies less on frontal guitar and the story is told mainly by the bass guitar. Chorus. Woooh! “Tasty”, growls Dave. Hell, yeah! It’s obvious that they have done it again. I can’t wait. I copy the album in my phone and scoot around Sofia because if I stay on one place I will just explode. I walk around the small streets around Tzar Shishman and the sitar in the intro of Mastermind makes me see colorful unicorns on the facades of the houses. It’s not going to work this way. I get two Belgian beers from ‘100 Beers’ and continue my stereowalk in Sofia. I'm a little ashamed, but I seem to sing along. Apart the sitar, this is one of the songs that are the closest to the original along with ‘When the Planes Fall from the Sky’. Yes, but then it comes 'Hallucination Bomb' and blows your mind. Here it is slower but also more slippery. As if it’s pouring from the cave on a distant planet and hungs like stardust. "If you're selling me hallucinations give me cobras and fire." And the last five minutes it erupts erupt into a volcanic-psychedelic mist of layered guitars and epic thunder.

 

There is a second beer in the backpack and that's good. Because after the previous blizzard I meet again with 'Gods and Punks', which has tamed its rumble and now pours from the headphones way more hypnotic and lyrical. 'The Titan' is a minimalist-rapt echo of its father, without vocals, only pulsations. Voiceless is also 'Time Machine', which makes it a wonderful instrumental science fiction fairytale. And 'Ball of Confusion' is total Hawkwind. Fast accelerating like Liberator, the ship of Blake's 7, heading for the next spatial portal and its tireless pace goes for seven minutes and makes you sweat of tension. And finale with a wink to the heir to the 'Mastermind' – the blury in time and space 'I live Behind the Paradise Machine (Evil Joe Barresi's Magnet Mash Vol.1)'. After which, with the second drank beer, I just play ‘The Last Patrol’ and go to find some friends to listen to Monster Magnet with, to drink, to smoke and to space out.

 

There is. Throughout the whole ‘Cobras And Fire (The Mastermind Redux)’ there mainly is. And, thank Bullgod, in this world (and probably not only) there is Monster Magnet. There is also reason the rate above to be five, not six points, and it is only the fact that these are not new songs of the band.