Scene Killer

Scene Killer features a collection of riff rockers from the New Jersey scene that spawned Monster Magnet, and includes members of the Magnet as well as Atomic Bitchwax, Solace, Core, Burnout King, the Lemmings, Rotgut and Solarized. James (Solarized) Hogan's concept is ambitious: to bring together the members of the scene and combine and develop their individual strengths through collaboration into a cohesive form. Over the course of almost two-and-a-half years, Hogan organised and recorded jams, which together with some salvaged tracks by Solarized, the Clone Obey, Rotgut and Drag Pack make up the body of the disc. Despite the time and effort he spent on it, the packaging seems cheap and ill conceived, especially the confusing liner notes, amateurish layout, and sleeve design. Hogan seams intent on namedropping Monster Magnet and riding on their coattails, but any comparisons can only remind us of how poorly these bands actually measure up. For example, Rotgut's "Pit Of The Soul" sounds like a rejected B-side from Monster Magnet's Super Judge sessions. The collection is neither shit nor gold; it's inconsistent but passable. Scene Killer was mixed by Sub Pop and Seattle fixture Jack Endino (who's manned the boards on efforts by countless acts, including Nirvana, Mudhoney and Nebula) and his comments on the disc say it all: "that was a somewhat motley batch of stuff, but I think there's an album there."