Mondo Generator Revives a Dead Planet with SonicSlowMotionTrails

Sorry folks, no nonsense about this recording, it’s all business with the Generator. It has to be. At least from Nick Oliveri’s point of view. After all, what do you do when you are asked to leave a band on the verge of breaking huge?

You go back to a band you always had on the back burner and turn up the heat with some tremendous, funny, powerful, psychotic, death punk metal.

You are going to see a lot of diverse ranges of music reviewed here. Running the gamut as it were. But this end is the heavy stuff. Some sick stuff. Some really interpersonal stuff. Some introspective stuff.

Regardless of the description/category/classification, Mondo Generator kick butt repeatedly, and fiercely. I am of the school of thought that Oliveri was the one who brought the angst to Queens Of The Stone Age. Yeah, for those who didn’t know, Nick is the bass player on such QOTSA hits as “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer”, “Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret”, “No One Knows”, “Go With The Flow” and was a full fledged member. Recently Mikey Schulman, lured to Queens by Josh Homme, has filled his ex-role permanently.

Personal reasons led to Oliveri’s dismissal. I’m NOT going into that in this forum. I am sure you can Google it. But ever since, there has been a sincere void left by the absence of Oliveri’s power-hard-madness.

That madness IS Mondo Generator.

I was fortunate enough to come across a promotional copy, which, while nice to have, is not complete. The original release is billed as Nick Oliveri And The Mondo Generator – Dead Planet: SonicSlowMotionTrails. The label felt that was a mouthful and condensed that to Mondo Generator - Dead Planet.

One noticeable difference in the Generator is a slicker, cleaner production on this album. Rumor has it that this was the first MG record NOT done at Rancho De La Luna. This was the studio that gave birth to QOTSA’s first few albums as well as the Desert Sessions, Eagles Of Death Metal, and more. It is an analog studio that is being run by the estate of the late owner. So I can see why many bands would not want to return. Not so much for the analog reason, more so they don’t want to deal with the legalities of a studio being run by an estate. This album was recorded by producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Velvet Revolver, System Of A Down) at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606.

Let’s talk about the music!

Basket Case kicks of this album in a big way in many ways. From the intro riff to the full blown production, and Nick ScreamSinging the lyrics, with the familiar theme of killing, death, and other jolly bad things.
Another familiar theme within Oliveri’s repertoire is drugs. I have a feeling about I Never Sleep; it might be about crystal meth. I still love both the album and the song particularly, that share the title “Cocaine Rodeo”. With the chorus of I Never Sleep proclaiming, “I never sleep, I never eat, don’t you wish you could be like me? I’m always high, I’ll never die, don’t you wish you could be like me?”

I know I wanna be Nick Oliveri. Too bad he didn’t write those words.

This is one of those set the tone songs. Louder, harder, faster, angrier, slicker, sicker, funnier. After only two songs into the order, too!

Floor tom four-on-the-floor beats propel All The Way Down. More of Oliveri’s subversive lyrics form yet another shining example of his unique brand of angst-metal-punk. In a typical but not typical break for the Generator, Queens, Dwarves, etc, keyboards bleat on the 16th’s?

The very taste that is the verse of She Only Owns You. While the production is more straightforward, the vocal production is nice and clean so you can hear Oliveri tell us what he wants to do to us. Three guesses. Nick is apologetic in the second bridge as instead of repeating his wanderlust, he admits, “you wanna kill me, I wanna kill me too.” HILARIOUS!!! Then in the rocking refrain, we learn of the origin of the title. Various laments of shared relationships.

Nick is a hell of a lot deeper than folks give him credit for.

Then what-do-ya-know Lie Detector has started! This was the big single for MG. The cover of the album is culled from the video for this single. With a sharp, concise rhythm burst verse and intro, we blow out in bridges and choruses to ask, “why did you lie?” or to admit condemning knowledge.

Sorry but I can’t let the whole Nick is under-rated thing die. Yeah, he brought angst, and a definitive hard edge to Queens Of The Stone Age, but when it came down to songwriting, no matter how inventive and catchy Oliveri’s writing was/is, it WAS overshadowed by J-ho, Baby Duck, or whatever Josh Homme decides to call himself and the writing style that best manifested itself within that Queen’s “rivalry”. Homme readily admits that the competition between them made each other write better material.

Mental Hell. What can I say? This is the quintessential hard rock/metal/punk/whatever song. Just the perfect song about demons in his head, etc. Then when it doesn’t get any more Kiss, he adds on some sweet harmonies to make it even more sarcastically saccharin. Long live Joey Ramone!!!

Fast fast drumbeats propel All Systems Go careening from anything it can bounce off of. Once the listener just gets settled into All Systems Go, Like A Bomb starts! You don’t get a chance to breathe and Nick tells us so as he harmonizes that he will leave us in pieces. Sometimes the distorted vocals make the lyrics tough to pinpoint or discern, but it is worth going to any Mondo Generator site (fan or authentic) to get the lyrics.

Closing my Nick is under-rated argument would be those lyrics. Yeah he talks about a lot of the dregs of society, but he does so in such a way that you ARE at the receiving end of the junkie’s needle. You get sucked in, like it or not.

The trippy bridge at the end of Like A Bomb tempts us towards explosion and before the dust settles and clears, we are greeted by an old friend.

You see, the Mondo Generator (at least up to this point) has been much like QOTSA in that it is a revolving band. To list even a percentage of the personnel to play on the previous albums would be phone book listing of all the Palm Springs Musician’s Who’s Who.

So this song has appeared in versions before, been done live, been done by other incarnations of Oliveri’s design, etc. and so on. So High, it’s great to see you, glad you found a home! This is the bipolar anthem of the new millennium!! The guitarists that have played that simple yet riveting riff. The rhythm sections that have propelled the choruses from the verses, picking up the tempo from that simple riff, some of these previous members are guest performers on the disc. Just straight ahead rock and kill. Even the end break with the chopped rhythm in a fairly free-flow song, is killer hard.

On to the next one, I told you so.

The sub-title track, Soncslowmotiontrails is quick tempo guitar lines set beside crash cymbal rumble drum lines. Once Oliveri sets the scene, bleak, then the counter vocals to the lead vocal that brings it all into focus with the line “dead plant, no future to fear”.

The break part is bouncing chords, back, forth, up, back, forth, up, bringing us back to the bleak decimated surroundings. After we guitar solo out, we are surprised but not surprised at what we hear after the effects end.

Apparently, in the confusion of Soncslowmotiontrails, Cap’t Nick took us out to sea with this shanty ditty. Take Me Away seriously has the tremolo guitars, acoustic guitar, even a Mexicali trumpet to make us think as though we were sailing on an antique pirate vessel.

I saw someone who had a pirate bumper sticker in traffic this morning.

Towards the middle, things get decidedly very Tones On Tail (if you ain’t knowing them, I’m here to let you know, Google that stuff!!!). Don’t know if that’s an ethnic nod or what.

Probably just what he heard in his head. But he also heard no breaks between these songs. About a minute left to the song and we return (to sea) with the addition of a drone note.

But we get a brief, and much needed breather before Nick lunges into some good ol’ angst-punk. With a bridge line too caustic to print here, it gives you that sense of freedom rarely achieved in light of today’s governmentally intrusive style of operations.

The pace of Life Of Sin is right up there with the best of the speed punkers. There isn’t much to this two-minute plus rip-roar, but it certainly packs it share of punch! As is expected from NOATMG, we time warp from post-apocalyptic tomorrow, right snap into the fifties!!!

I am certain I heard Paper Thin in a commercial of some kind or another. The production and arrangements make you think of carhops and poodle skirts and greaser Johnny. But by the time we get to the chorus, we are back in 2008 and as soon as we go back to the verse, time warp again. I’m getting tired here!!! Thankfully lead guitarists(?) Ian Taylor and/or Spud were allowed to flex their muscle during the more rocked out part as opposed to the fifties verse. The lyrics never let us forget it’s 2008. “Paper thin, cracks in your skin, hollow eyes…” But the end takes us out with a timeless acoustic piano and tremolo guitar part.

A fake live environment starts off something that MUST be a traditional composition, that being Sam Hall. 12 bar something or another. The Johnny Cash arrangement.

Damn your eyes.

By the way, the drummer is Ernie Longoria. Nick plays bass. Of course.

There She Goes Again demonstrates high speed, high-energy power punk. Another song that could very well get some attention were there the proper venue for acts of this intriguing ilk. I see a couple of songs that have mass appeal.

While being a long time Oliveri staple, Bloody Hammer is not one of them. Oliveri has tried to pass this song off with just about everybody, Queens, Eagles Of Death Metal, probably Dwarves, most definitely solo and with MG. The lyrics are most notably the scene-stealer. Hammering your mind out, demons to the left, baby-ghosts urging chain-wielding beatings… too much for Middle America.

But the east coast digs it!!!

Time to rest now, it’s been a busy active disc, so even as you rest your head, Nick taunts your sleep with Sleep The Lie Away, which is only a common beat away from cacophony. Nick’s delayed voice, drifts, drifts, drifts, as the band explodes beneath Nick’s pleas for disinfection from a dream lover.

I am not recommending you buy this Mondo Generator album. I recommend you buy ALL of them (they only have four or five, so it’s no big deal, I say four or five as there exists a live DVD, very worth it, and an out-of-print EP I still covet. Shut up, do YOU have the Gamma Ray 7” in CLEAR vinyl?). Oliveri continually refreshes his sound, his lyrical content is always interesting, and if he is continuing to up the ante by getting bigger budgets for production, he will be an underground artist to watch.

If you can keep up with him!!!

P.S. I must address the lateness of this entry, suffice it to say I owe much thanks to the good folks at DC computers in Naz., who ARE the Nazz.