I like to listen to music when I work. I like music period, but perhaps that has something to do with being a musician. I like it all, from The Carter Family to Slayer, Pachelbel to Coltrane. What I have in my deck right now is the Deftones' "Adrenaline" and Monster Magnet's 1992 release, "Superjudge." While the former is decent, if not the best Deftones out there, the latter makes me think a bit. Fitting within the realm of sludge/stoner/doom rock, Monster Magnet has been about the only band, outside of the seminal band for the genre, Black Sabbath, to acheive semi-stardom. Yet, one finds them alongside other greats such as The Bevis Frond, Electric Wizard, and Abdullah at my favorite music site.

Superjudge is a cool album, mixing punk, metal, doom, and world music in seamless fashion. There are later bands such as System of a Down, perhaps more authentic, that do so with equal capacity, but a decade later. For doom/stoner jam sequences the title track can't be beat. The song has the sort of "bludgeoned with a side of beef" lilting tone later (psychedlically) explored by Abdullah in "Path to Enlightenment."

Perhaps what is most striking about Monster Magnet is the lyrics. The music is trippy-heavy, but there is a assertion of power in the lyrics. When the disc is spinning, the world begins and ends within the confines of the syrup-heavy rhythms these guys pump out. If God's voice is a stentorian hammer cutting throught the fog of a confused world, then these guys have found the equivalent within contemporary music.

My recommendation: turn the lights down, crank the stereo, put the disc on, and contemplate your place in the universe.