for five interminable seconds before revving back into a torrid guitar solo. In contrast to the relatively concise muscle car that was
Powertrip, Magnet's 1998 commercial breakthrough,
God Says No luxuriates in a decadent psych-rock whirlpool, improbably bridging the chasm between the Music Machine and Nine Inch Nails. It takes the flying-saucer guitars and dime-store organ riffs out of the
Nuggets-era garage and uses them to evoke the alien atmospherics of
The Fragile (NIN co-producer Alan Moulder was enlisted to mix).
Beneath the heathen-horde boogie of "Doomsday," "Heads Explode" and "All Shook Out," God Says No plays with big themes such as death, betrayal, self-esteem and loneliness. The uncharacteristically poignant "Queen of You" is even written from a woman's perspective. Sitars, slide guitars and Casio-keyboard beats widen the album's reach even further, from the thickly distorted John Lee Hookerisms of "Gravity Well" to the nursery-rhyme simplicity of "Take It." But more than anything, on God Says No Wyndorf brings the rawk: sexy, dark, melodic, celebratory and, above all, huge. (RS 861)
GREG KOT
