*Always* mistakenly referred to as 'the Faith No More singer's side-project', this is more accurately 'Mike Patton's other band', and one in which he only even appears in the writing credits for 5 of the 12 songs on their new album. His main co-protagonists are bassist Trevor Dunn and guitarist Trey Spruance. The latter played for Faith No More on their King For a Day... and is sure to have clouded the following warning still further :- DO NOT COME IN HERE EXPECTING FAITH NO MORE. Especially if you thought that they were 'a bit way out'...
Mr Bungle are unlike *anything* you have ever heard because they are like *everything* you have ever heard before. Simultaneously.
Let me throw a few songs at you to demonstrate. "Everyone I Went to High School With is Dead" is lo-fi death-metal sludge which ends with what sounds like the drummer being pushed down the stairs. This is followed by "Chemical Marriage", a cheasy-listening nightmare which shudders into "Carry Stress In the Jaw" a hyper-kinetic scary jazz thrash akin to Billie Holiday on PCP with a flick knife, before stumbling across a hidden song which features Grampa Simpson babbling over an imaginary 50's spy theme.
Confused yet ? Well, how about "Desert Search for Techno Allah" which sounds exactly like you just fleetingly imagined it does, and the 10 minute suite of ambient-sound pieces that is "The Bends", the closing section of which, "Re-Entry", is guaranteed to speed up your heart-beat every time ? Marvel at the awesome delight of "Violenza Domestica", a Spanish sea-shanty themed opera. Thrill to "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz" where Benny Hill gets tangled up in Looney Toons and gothic grandeur. GASP as "Merry Go Bye Bye" breaks from Vegas-pop into precision death metal, stopping only to flick through the enitre long-wave radio band on the way.
The recurring theme of the artwork and music is that of the claustrophobia and terror of the deep sea, where their self-titled debut saw them hanging out with a gang of scary clowns and their fairground organs. Where the debut is now dated by toilet-humour and a funk edge that places it firmly in the early 90's, this is state-of-the-art bizarreness. Rarely emotionally engaging on any other level other than sheer fear, Mr Bungle are nonetheless a jaw-dropping excursion into noise terrorism and more fascinating than a Pamela Anderson snuff flick.
You don't know that you want this.
