MONDO GENERATOR - Cocaine Rodeo LP (colour vinyl)

Limited edition of 100 copies on either black/white/neon magenta OR cornetto orange colour vinyl.

This album was culled from two completely different sessions, with two completely different lineups; one or even both not originally meant to be billed under the "Mondo Generator" name.

Let's get this out of the way: Josh Homme (and Brant Bjork drumming along with him) only appears on three tracks. One of these tracks is the joke country closer named after the album. As a whole, this album is by no means the missing link between Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age that fans and Southern Lord made this out to be.

For the bulk of the album, the band consists of Rob Oswald* (aka Up N. Syder) of Karma to Burn on drums, Brent Malkus* (aka Burnt Mattress) of Berserk on guitar, and Nick Oliveri on bass. Brent and Nick share vocal duties and, at this point in Mondo Generator's incarnation (or whoever they might've been at the time), it very much seems that the two were co-frontmen. This dynamic would be sorely missed in future albums; Brent's songs are all incredibly strong and act as an effective foil with Nick's more out of control punk tracks. When compared to Josh's guitar offerings, there's just something so youthfully enthusiastic, yet vaguely off kilter about Brent's playing.

That's not to knock the two main Homme/Bjork/Oliveri tracks, though. Quite the contrary, "13th Floor" (which would become "Tension Head" on Rated R) is a savage opening track. The other offering, "Simple Exploding Man", is an absolute juggernaut and likely the closest Oliveri will ever come to encapsulating a punk/stoner rock hybrid.