Mondo Generator

It was 1997 when Nick Oliveri, whose rap sheet includes stints in Kyuss, Dwarves, and Queens of the Stone Age, first shat out his wild-eyed, foul-mouthed bastard child: Mondo Generator (although, Cocaine Rodeo wasn’t released until 2000). As a member of the incestuous mob responsible for the Desert Sessions, it’s no surprise that the roll call on Mondo Generator’s long-awaited sophomore release reads like a desert rock who’s who. To name drop but a few: Brant Bjork (Kyuss, Fu Manchu), Dave Catching (QOTSA, Earthlings?), Molly Maguire (Earthlings?, Yellow #5), Blag Dahlia (Dwarves), Josh Homme (Kyuss, QOTSA) and Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) are all contributors. And, with a hand that stacked how could he loose? The guest musicians and eclectic vibe of A Drug Problem draw obvious parallels with QOTSA, but unlike the cohesive successes of QOTSA’s Songs For The Deaf and the similarly wicked Brant Bjork & The Operators this is a bit of a dog’s breakfast. Not only do the straight-ahead rock’n’roll stompers, punk rants, adolescent sex fantasies, and acoustic confessionals lack a certain cohesion, the disc is also almost equally divided between great, good, and somewhat uninspired songs. Has Songs For The Deaf set the bar too high? If this were put out by a no-name band would fans be more or less forgiving? Is there such a thing as a rock’n’roll placebo? Whatever. A Drug Problem That Never Existed is a good, and at times great, diverse, low-brow, knuckle-dragging, abrasive, raunchy, testosterone-fuelled, rowdy, rock’n’roll record.