Released: June 16, 1998
Monster Magnet – Powertrip: Monster Magnet Made Sleaze Sound Huge
Monster Magnet did not get cleaner on Powertrip.
They got bigger.
That is the first thing that makes the album interesting. This is still Dave Wyndorf’s world: comic-book ego, space-rock fuzz, cheap motel mysticism, bad ideas, loud cars, and lyrics that sound like they were written after too much caffeine and not enough sleep.
But this time, the whole thing hits differently.
The question is simple: what happens when a weird underground band figures out how to sound massive without becoming normal?
That is Powertrip.
Released in 1998, the album does not throw away the psychedelic Monster Magnet thing. It tightens it. The songs are less foggy than Dopes to Infinity. The riffs are more direct. The hooks are bigger. The whole record feels like somebody took the old space-rock smoke and shoved it into a muscle car.
“Crop Circle” opens with that exact feeling. It still has the weirdness, but the groove is stronger. It does not float around looking for the song. It already knows where it is going. Ed Mundell’s guitar gives the track that heavy, sunburned fuzz, while the band locks into something closer to hard rock than a full acid trip.
Then “Powertrip” kicks in and explains the record in one shot.
This is Monster Magnet with the sunglasses on.
The title track works because it sounds like a fantasy of quitting your job, buying something stupid, and driving straight into bad decisions. Wyndorf sells it completely. He is not singing like a tortured poet. He is singing like a guy who knows the whole thing is ridiculous and still wants the keys.
That is the charm.
Monster Magnet always had the weird record-store brain. Hawkwind, Sabbath, garage rock, biker movies, comics, psychedelia, all of it. Powertrip turns that into something more immediate. It still smells like basement incense, but now there are arena lights pointed at it.
“Space Lord” is the obvious monster, and it earns that spot. The song is huge, stupid, funny, and weirdly perfect. The riff is simple. The chorus is massive. Wyndorf turns rock-star ego into a cartoon character and somehow makes it feel real. It should be too much.
It is too much.
That is why it works.
“Temple of Your Dreams” keeps the album in that oversized lane. Big riff. Big chorus. Big attitude. But underneath the swagger, there is still enough dirt to keep it from sounding like regular radio rock. Monster Magnet are not polished in the boring sense. They are polished like a blacklight poster framed in chrome.
The middle of the album is where the old Monster Magnet weirdness keeps breathing. “Bummer” stretches out more. “Baby Götterdämmerung” brings the comic-book madness right to the surface. “19 Witches” and “3rd Eye Landslide” remind you that even when the band is writing tighter songs, Wyndorf is still operating from his own planet.
That matters because Powertrip could have gone wrong easily.
The band could have sanded everything down. They could have chased a hit until the personality disappeared. Instead, the record keeps the sleaze, the fuzz, and the cosmic nonsense. It just puts them in better shoes.
“See You in Hell” has that old-school hard rock stomp, but Monster Magnet make it feel dirtier and stranger. “Tractor” does the same thing in a smaller, nastier way. The band sound like they are having fun, but not in a clean party-rock way. More like the party already went bad and nobody wants to leave.
That is the album’s real trick.
It takes excess and makes it useful.
The production helps. Wyndorf and Matt Hyde make the record big without making it sterile. The guitars are thick. The drums punch. The hooks land. But the whole thing still feels a little greasy around the edges, which is exactly where Monster Magnet should live.
By the end, Powertrip feels like a breakthrough that should not have worked as well as it did. A band this strange should not end up with a Gold record and an MTV hit.
But maybe that is the point.
In 1998, when a lot of rock was either miserable, macho, or trying too hard to be serious, Monster Magnet showed up sounding like a bad decision with a chorus.
So what happens when a weird underground band figures out how to sound massive without becoming normal?
You get Powertrip.
Not Monster Magnet selling out.
Monster Magnet finding a bigger room for the smoke, the swagger, and the weird.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia. Artist information and music courtesy of the band. © 2026 DeadNoteMedia. All rights reserved.
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