Tag Archives: Mr Bungle

2020 MUSIC: 3 GREAT ALBUMS

Posted on by
Reply

Festive greets to anyone who found this post! If you want exhaustive 2020 music tips, go to a proper source. If scant and quick is more your bag, here are three beasts that go down heavier than a frozen turkey on Christmas Day.

Ready? Let’s get stuffed. More to follow in later posts.

MR BUNGLE: The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo

You know what it’s like when you haven’t played Slayer for a while and then, when you do, you’re left grinning and pulverised by their OTT? Giddy disbelief at the relentless ferocity in a song format. And it feels so good because it’s like coming home.

Mr Bungle The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo
Mr Bungle: feelgood thrashing

This is what Mr Bungle 2020 captures too. Despite, or maybe because of, the pant-shittingly brisk pace whipped up by three core Mr Bungle mentalists and two Big Four godheads, it’s probably the feelgood album of the year. It’s frantic, vital and comes with a shitload of commitment and prep. Scott Ian said that to nail the complexity of the riffs, he broke them down into 1-2 minute parts and spent days at a time on a single fragment. Said he changes what he’s doing 93 times during Sudden Death. Said that only when he got up to 214bpm in warm-ups was he ready for the shows. Said he got arthritis from practising so hard. Coming from one of the longest serving riff meisters in thrash, this says a lot about the work that went in and you can really hear it. Theory nerd and scales master Trey Spruance had to learn how to play metal again so he could get through a track, then a gig, of intense metallic shreds.

Weirdest of all, they did all this to service a bunch of tunes by their 1986 teenage selves. Could it join the all-time thrash greats given that it’s both 30 years late AND of the time? Who knows. But the one thing you can’t escape is the love and affection oozing out of these speed metal grooves – love for the genre, for the source demo and for each other. This is not a band going through the motions.

And the more you learn about the backstory, the more magical the whole thing becomes. One day it might even become mythical: like, did it actually happen? It’s a proper sideways take on a reunion. But Bungle had the tools, brains and work ethic to do it. Treat of the year.

OLD MAN GLOOM: Seminar VIII Light of Meaning and Seminar IX Darkness of Being

The late Caleb Scofield was honoured post-humously on Cave In’s last album, Final Transmission. Now his distinctive bass force and song-crafting talent is honoured again on this double release by Old Man Gloom. Fucking hell. Every Gloom album is an event, such is their absurd mix of metalcore, drone, static, sci fi terror and primate myth-making, but these two albums hit a combined gear that shifts them nearer to their peak Seminar II-Seminar III-Christmas run. Has the loss of Scofield given the music a heavier purpose? Very likely.

Old Man Gloom Seminar XIII Light of Meaning
Snow Man Gloom: noise to the core

Across the two discs we get the full range of OMG moods and modes, amplified by Nate Newton, Caleb Scofield and Aaron Turner all sharing vocal duties. Also getting a mic spot and shaping the music is Stephen Brodsky – not a previous Gloom member but absolutely blood family. And the Cave In touch is obvious on tracks like Final Defeat and especially Death Rhymes, an acoustic sledgehammer to the gut and a peak moment from both sets. At the other end of the OMG spectrum, By Love All Is Healed‘s lyrical sensitivity is obliterated by Turner’s sub-human roar. And so it goes on. 11-minute sprawls, one-chord hammerings, deep space terror, super short concrete blasts, aching heavy beauty – all the Old Man Gloom elements you know and love, spread across two full-lengthers. Headphone bliss.

HUNTSMEN: Mandala of Fear

Never heard of this band until Stuart Maconie played the track Ride Out on his Freakzone show. Here are my words about the track from that month’s Rewind:

‘YES. Not the opposite of no, but Yes the band – because if that early vocal doesn’t remind you of Jon Anderson, you’ve never heard Jon Anderson. And if you have heard him, you’ve never heard him over a super dense prog thrash attack that’s Rush-taut (how tightly packed is that rhythm guitar?) but way heavier. Shit me, it feels good. Of course, Huntsmen’s Anderson is part-time and gets blown into next decade by a metalcore breakout, making this one of the most exhilarating tunes of the month.’

It’s all still true. And the rest of this double-disc album? A monstrous metallic rock effort. Doom and prog tinged but not remotely downer or indulgent. Aggressive vocals and clean harmonies. Flashes of brutality balanced by space-psyche soar. Everything in its right place. If Pelican had more range AND male-female vocals, this might be where they’d end up. A proper hidden gem.

Huntsmen Mandala of Fear
Huntsmen: just say Yes

So that’s that, three masterful metalworks from 2020. Check the next couple of posts for other 2020 music highlights.

’til then!

BUNGLED, BOWIED AND BLIND EYED

Posted on by
Reply

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER REWIND: NEW DAMAGE FROM MR BUNGLE, OUTSIDE LIVE FROM DAVID BOWIE, PUNK RAGE BY BLIND EYE

Halloween feels like an age ago now but it’s worth a mention because it inspired some great BBC 6 Music radio that week. Mary Anne Hobbs declared it Metal Week, which meant that shards of experimental metal shredded her mid-morning playlists – Duma, Sunn O))), Venom Prison, Divide and Dissolve, Boris and loads more. Ace to hear all that cranking out the radio before lunchtime, a proper thrill for the work-at-home brigade.

We got a couple of big-name album releases in October that we just have to celebrate, but first we’ll do our usual Rewind thing with a couple of one-off tracks that leapt pretty high these past few weeks.

LUCIDVOX: Amok

DIY, punk, psych, riffs, Russian folk mystery … these are the words you’ll see in the Lucidvox Bandcamp bio. What Amok delivers is post something, but what? It rocks, but there are no hooks. Not really. Instead there’s insistent, mantra-like rhythm and momentum under rough, semi surf-metal guitars. Maybe even a painterly post-Beefheart lick in the second half. Art punk? Who knows. A curiosity piquer for sure.

PIJN: Denial (worriedaboutsatan mix)

Denial is the first track from Pijn’s 2018 album, Loss – 5 minutes of GY!BE meets Pelican-styled metallics. West Yorkshire’s worriedaboutsatan keep the weight intact but build a mechanical, moodier electro ambience that pushes Denial into the darker recesses of the night.

KLEIN: No More Shubz

Wow. Some music seems to work not in genres but in sculptures, but how can you write that without sounding like a total arse? Summery Jane’s Addiction acoustics and vocalisms dissolve into an amorphous blackened space which folds in and out of its 3D self. Like looking off the earth’s edge. How did we get here? True moment of wonder. Shubz this way.

Right, that’s the tracks done. Now for some longer forms.

MR BUNGLE: THE RAGING WRATH OF THE EASTER BUNNY DEMO

It never made sense hearing Mr Bungle described as ‘Mike Patton’s extreme metal project’ when he first joined Faith No More. As we know, each of their albums is the precocious opposite of one-genre limitations, but now we have the reason: their early The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo WAS metal. Thrash. But who knew? Barely anyone – Scott Ian excepted. For everyone else, Mr Bungle were Not Metal.

But 2020 Bungle is. This is Very, Very Metal, as the bastardisation of the logo shows. Anyone looking for Mr Bungle’s cross-genre perversions will be disappointed, but really, who’s not gonna get their oversized old-school grin on to this 56-minute batshit joyride? Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, Trevor Dunn and new recruits Scott Ian (56) and Dave Lombardo (55) annihilate – and they’re having blast. It’ll take a while for the zillion-plus riffs to sink in and the Bungle complexities to surface (surely they’re in there?), but this is one of the least expected and most welcome arrivals of the year. Does it rock? Fuck yeah! Bungle Grind is just one of many full-tilt highlights so buckle up and file it next to your Dead Cross and Anthrax maximum bpms. 100% unlike any other Mr Bungle. 100% Mr Bungle. Of course.

DAVID BOWIE: OUVREZ LE CHIEN

While Mr Bungle are in their fifties playing the music of their own youth, David Bowie was doing no such thing when he approached the big five-oh. In 1995, aged 48, he was doing his last bit of boundary-pushing with Outside and then Earthling a couple of years later.

For anyone who loves mid 90s Bowie and didn’t get to see his live shows of the time, they’re the stuff of dreams – especially the collaborative US tour with Nine Inch Nails. And so this new batch of live recordings from Dallas, October 13th, 1995, is for us. None of the Nine Inch Nails collaborations are included, but the fearless setlist is exactly what we want to hear. No Starman, no Life on Mars, no Ziggy, no Changes, none of the obvious 70s gear. Instead, six tracks from Outside, Look Back in Anger and Nite Flights. Andy Warhol, electrified into jerky, awkward full-rock action. The Man Who Sold the World, revamped bass-heavy atmospheric and miles better. Joe the Lion, roaring. And to hear Mike Garson and Reeves Gabrels lay their untamed gifts all over the show? YES. It’s a crack Bowie band, this.

(the second CD in this live series, No Trendy Rechauffe from Birmingham, December 13th, 1995, has just been released. Similar tracklist but some good switches too. Stream it if you can or check davidbowie.com for whatever comes next).

BLIND EYE: BLIND EYE

Not an October release but definitely new enough to incude is the first release from Nottingham’s Blind Eye. Devoid of all finesse, this is fast, loose punk hardcore with no smooth edges and even less polish. Early Motorhead, Discharge and Minor Threat inform the abrasive pace, except for 9-minute closer End which swerves into the kind of burnout you’d get from The Heads. Wakey wakey.

’til next time!

If Mr Bungle has stoked a Patton revival, here’s a bit more wordage – a Halloween playlist and a quickie Dead Cross write up

HALLOWEEN NOISE PATTONS

Posted on by
Reply

GREETINGS, schlock pickers. Ready for some deranged voicework this All Hallows’ Eve? Good.

We’ve said it before but if Melvins are Halloween’s house band then super-colluder Mike Patton is surely one of its top MCs. From loverboy whispers and honeyed sweeteners to lullaby daymares, carnival histrionics and pure fucking gibberish, he does it all – and then some. Never more than a beat away from innocence or insanity, it’s this wanton skittery that makes him the rock-vocal equivalent of cinema’s most amoral psychos: the ones who do bad shit just because.

So, we’re digging the grave (yes) of his more rock-heavy oeuvre. If you’re short of time, hit When Good Dogs Do Bad Things first and fill the gaps later. 11 tracks, audio only, no videos except for our short sharp opening shot of… Will Smith?

Too right. Patton is the voice of his I Am Legend post-human nemesis.

FAITH NO MORE: SURPRISE! YOU’RE DEAD!
Could have chosen Zombie Eaters for the title alone, but no. For those of us snagged into FNM’s world by We Care A Lot, The Real Thing was our first exposure to the new guy and it takes just four tracks for him to go voco-loco on our No Faith ears. The start of a new era.

MELVINS: GI JOE
Boneyard beats in a street-smart bed. Non-maniacal menace. All in day’s work for a Melvins/Patton/Ipecac project.

DEAD CROSS: CHURCH OF THE MOTHERFUCKERS
It’d be easy to pick the Bauhaus cover from the Dead Cross debut but Bela Lugosi’s Dead is all over Halloween anyway, so let’s gather for a more visceral midnight mass instead.

FANTOMAS: DER GOLEM
A flawless, monstrous body of classic horror themes skewered and reassembled with grotesque results, The Director’s Cut is one of those albums that’s end-to-end fright-night perfect. It’s why their depraved Omen made our first playlist five years ago because it’s bound for the asylum on a brakeless hell-cart. Anything from this record could make the cut and this year, it’s Der Golem. Slow and Slayer heav-eee with Patton escalating the madness.

TOMAHAWK: WAR SONG
Pace breaker, mood changer, heavy atmos spirited up from the rituals and songs of the Native Americans, Tomahawk style.

PEEPING TOM: SUCKER
Light relief with this voyeuristic hip-pop project, but it still fits. Check the seductive call-and-response voicework, catchy as balls.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN: WHEN GOOD DOGS DO BAD THINGS
As if throwing your Salem’s Lot in with Slayer and Melvins wasn’t OTT enough, Patton threw his vocal pyros at this four-track EP back in 2002. Precision mathprogmentalism at its most possessed, Good Dogs is a frenzied attack whose first two minutes leave you savaged. After that, the lull a-bye-bye and slasher false end finale. Mike Patton’s finest six minutes? Maybe. Just load the EP and lose your senses in this one-off detonation of demented genius.

TOMAHAWK: WHEN THE STARS BEGIN TO FALL
Tomahawk goes sneakabout and throws in some theramin? Perfect. Duane Denison’s chords muster the tension, Patton blows and soars.

KAADA PATTTON: INVOCATION
Bacteria Cult is a better-named Kaada Patton record, but Romances gives us Invocation, a genteel creep that’s 60s sound-effect spectral and almost the ghost side of Fantomas – without the bloody metallic body parts.

FAITH NO MORE: MALPRACTICE
A twisted tale of christknowswhat, under-the-knife molestation? Jagged riffage and a symphonic pile-up that’s borderline cacophonous, Malpractice is another of Patton’s most out-there Faith No More moments. APPLAUSE??? Done like a slain beast.

MR BUNGLE: THE HOLY FILAMENT
It’s not their most avant or celebrated album – I guess Disco Volante is – but California packs some of Mr Bungle’s most potent moments and the score-ish Holy Filament is a mellow supernatural sliver of an ending to this year’s playlist. The first half sweats tension, the second half sweeps a falsetto from the afterlife.

Happy listening? We didn’t even mention perhaps THE most fitting Patton track of all, and that’s because it’s an album: Delirium Cordia by Fantomas (who else?). A score of fragments and wide-open spaces means that between the bursts of Patton garble, Lombardo assault, ghostly ambience and white noise, your mind has much room to roam about in – and if you’ve flicked the album’s artwork, those pristine surgery scenes (dislodged eyeball, intestinal wash) make you feel a wee bit queasy. And there’s no escape, because it’s a 75-minute track. You can’t skip anything. Trapped, imprisoned and captured till you hit the 20-minute vinyl run-out groove at the end. Music for voluntary confinement … keep the lights off if you dare.

For a less sombre listen with some mildly retro metal videos, check Hairy Halloween I and II from the last couple of years, or dabble in the gothic splendour of the late Saint Pete of Steele and Type O’s Sabbath slowdown. PUMPKINS OUT, over.

Hairy Halloween II

Posted on by
Reply

A pumpkin-grin welcome to anyone who’s there, and this year’s handful of Halloweeny hitters is a straight follow-up to last year: another blast of old-school rock tracks, videos and vibes that fit the ‘ween thing, and like all slasher sequels, it’s probably not as good as the one before…

…OR IS IT??? Wait for the dark.

JOE SATRIANI: Big Bad Moon

What do you want from a Halloween vid? A dark, deserted street? Check. Full-moon menace? Yep. Amplifier being kicked down the stairs so a guitarist can solo the frig out of it? Errrrrrr no, but why the hell not??? Enter Big Bad Moon. Not only is the mood right, but you get an electro-shock Satch hair-ender that’s undead-worthy (low budget special effects version). Killer tune, killer solos.

TOOL: Stinkfist

Less blitzy than Satriani, but Stinkfist does anything but reek. Any number of Tool tunes could make a dark-side playlist, and this creepsome promo makes Tool a shoe-in. Check the Stinkfist sand people, watch ’em peel.

MR BUNGLE: Quote Unquote

Odd weird. Sinister weird. Which is what you expect from Mr Bungle, right? Soundtrack to a death circus. With masks.

JUDAS PRIEST: Turbo Lover

Sure, A Touch of Evil makes more sense on the surface, but we’re not going as deep as surface here – we’re going for the vibe, specifically the Terminator-as-argonaut retro stink flying off this hilariously shit video. Rocking tune, though.

DAVID BOWIE: Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)

A fair few Bowie tunes could land on a list like this, but if atmosphere and menace are on the menu instead of literal Scary Monsters, the predatory pre-Blackstar Sue (Or in a Season of Crime) jazz ensemble racks it up nice and noir.

VOIVOD: Astronomy Domine

Did anyone else find the Tribal Convictions video a bit creepy as a kid? No? OK, that’s embarrassing. Let’s have a disembodied Voivodian vocal in a flicker-flicker-flicker-bam Floyd cover with a video of a band on a rotating wheel instead. Better?

ALICE COOPER: Killers

The creep factor in this version of Is It My Body has nothing to do with Alice stage props and effects – it’s pre-Nightmare, but Cooper was a theatrical master even when his props were nothing more than a shiny onesie, a shoe and a pink leotard. Classic. But this video for Killer (live) is a wee bit more showtime, shall we say. If the noose fits…

SMASHING PUMPKINS: Ava Adore

Graced with gothic electronica, alt-rock’s very own Uncle Fester goes full Nosferatu in the video – check the Corgan choreography for some pretty slick Nosfer moves you’ll wanna steal.

CHRIS MORRIS: Jam (intro to episode 2)

Not music, but there is dancing. Morris dancing. Subversive, woozy and warped at every twist, Jam fits right in with any horror sesh, and Morris’s taunt-and-haunt free-dance flail in the face of a failed suicide is wrong enough to be oh-so-very right.

MELVINS/TOOL: Divorced

If ever there was a Halloween house band, Melvins would surely be it. Tool could do visuals, but there are no visuals here – get the headphones, kill the lights and sink deep into a 15-minute pit of top-grade Toolvins.

AC/DC: Night Prowler

A rat runs down the alley, and a chill runs down your spine…can there be a better lyric to end on? Pure slasher, a Bon ace over a deadly, bluesy groove.

But you can’t really have a halloween sequel without a farcical false ending, so … a heroic big-hair resurrection it is – check the big-budget cheapness in this Elm Street cornball. Who were those guys, Freddie? Eh? Lynch axe still cuts it, mind.

THE END! Off now, Salem’s Lot beckons.