There I was, bemoaning "The State Of Rock" in mid-1998, thinking of the music more as a pleasant memory than a current reality, as, numb and half-conscious, I sat with my Massive Attack and Tricky CDs on auto-repeat. A year and a half to go until the big 2 triple-0, and maybe it was just time to give it up and start writing about UFO's. The music industry had, it seemed, swallowed its own tail, putting so much emphasis on overzealous sales-hype and lightweight imagery that you couldn't even hear the music anymore - it was just a stale backdrop for beer commercials and other idle and hopeless consumer fantasies.

Today, I sit here a changed man - I now rock again, and I've got Dave Wyndorf to thank for it. Apparently Monster Magnet's main man had been in much the same situation as I, bored with the music biz and ready to pack it in, finally deciding to give it one more kick at the can by heading to Las Vegas to immerse himself in some non-bourgeois lifestyle, forcing himself to write a song every day before heading out to get sleazy. The inspired result is, to these ears, the rock album of 1998. Quite frankly, I didn't think anybody could write 'em like this anymore. This is pure, gnarly American rock: one part Iggy and the Stooges motor-metal, one part ? And The Mysterians garage, one part Doorsy psychedelia. It's what people used to call "hard rock" before all of this micro-categorization mania target-marketed the life out of rock music.

After going back and checking out a couple of MM's previous releases, I can say that Wyndorf's singing has improved markedly, his lyric-writing has jumped a few notches in quality, and the band's ensemble-playing here is sharper than ever before. In fact, this album is so startlingly good that one wonders what demons the singer consorted with down in Vegas, and if he signed any contracts in his own blood. There's really not a bad - or even an average - cut on Powertrip, as Wyndorf adopts the persona of the dark rock underlord (see the great pic on the inside sleeve for proof), gleefully taking us on a trawl of the Western Wreck of '98. The title track posits a gutter-dandy's solution to the omnipresence of the Protestant work ethic: you gotta go low to get high.

"I'm never gonna work another day in my life," Wyndorf shouts over some raunchy rapido-riffing. "The Gods told me to relax, they said I'm gonna get fixed up right." Meanwhile, "3rd Eye Landslide" features some snaky, winding guitar lines and a satiric critique of "The United States of Who Gives A Shit's" corporate nihilism: "I used to be a dreamer just like you/ and then my pocket told me what to do ... Suckin' love from wherever I can/ cashing Satan's checks with my dick in my hand," Wyndorf growls. That's the blasted terrain of Powertrip: a society where human life is just another disposable commodity, where TV-fed dreams have become a mass nightmare. Nope, I didn't think they could write 'em like this anymore. And I'm sure as hell glad that Dave Wyndorf took that trip to Las Vegas.