Review Summary: Awesome Progressive Pop With a Sinister Edge
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Mr. Bungle - California
by Clumpy
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Bands like Mr. Bungle don't come along everyday. These twisted avant-rockers arguably kicked off modern metal and rock as we know it (particularly the dissonant elements; angst-rock group Korn uses a chord they call the "Mr. Bungle" chord - a standard power chord with the midnote a half-step down - for that wonderful dissonant-harmonic feel).
While all the band's members have notable talent (five main musicians, with a host (14!) of guest musicians credited in the album's liner notes), the real brainchild of the project is avante rocker Mike Patton, the certified psycho who brought Faith No More to its creative plateau. As that band's frontman in the 90s, Patton accomplished a unique feat - he helped FNM garner worldwide success despite the music's experimentation. Is he a modern-day Frank Zappa? You'll have to decide for yourself - much of Patton's music bridges on the insane.
Patton's name arguably helped Mr. Bungle hit the big time in the nineties, with their self-titled ska/thrash release (1991) and highly experimental sophomore effort Disco Volante (1995). Critics found themselves at a loss for words when reviewing these releases (one critic called Disco Volante "synchopated blasts of cartoonish noise"), and rightly so: Mr. Bungle stretched the definition of what constitutes a "song", fostering a period of crazed inventiveness in the post-grunge alternative music of the nineties.
So . . . does Mr. Bungle's third-and-probably-final release, California, live up to its worthy legacy? Short answer. . . yes.
"California" walks a wonderful line - it is, by far, Mr. Bungle's most accessible record (due to its more harmonic nature), but under its mainstream veneer brims a sinister subversiveness. The album features the disharmonic pseudometal pieces of albums past, but the real star is the more harmonic tracks: the Brian Wilson-esque harmonies have a sick streak running through them, as the instrumentation changes aprubtly (and a little frighteningly) when least expected. I find this refreshingly unsettling - Mr. Bungle may play genres you're familiar with, but it's all a ruse. The band makes metal, pop, indian melodies and even rockabilly their own. The album's lyrics are a notable highlight and challenge you like few modern pop releases. Read to these lyrics:
"Now I'm finding truth is a ruin, nauseous end that nobody is pursuing.
Staring into glassy eyes, mesmerized.
There's a vintage thirst returning, but I'm sheltered by my channel-surfing.
Every famine, virtual, retrovertigo, a tribute to false memories.
With conviction, cheap imitation. Is it fashion or disease?"
Every song on the album hits the perfect emotional and musical buttons, while covering fresh yet familiar musical ground. Album highlights include death metal rockabilly preaching the dangers of "reductionism and the Beast" ("None of Them Knew They Were Robots"), a suicide note disguised as a love song (or is it the other way around?) like the sultry, sing-alongable "Pink Cigarette", or a boppy lounge number ("Vanity Fair") with a hidden, heavily sarcastic message about narcissism, and an even scarier deeper meaning.
And let's not even get into the Frankstein robot-rock that is "Golem II: The Vionic Vapour Boy". Good luck getting that one out of your head.
Musically, all the arrangements are topnotch, and range from relatively simple vocal pieces ("The Holy Filament") to multiple-track, masterly-crafted aural roller-coasters ("Goodbye Sober Day"). Mr. Bungle has an uncommon gift to pull together seemingly-disparate elements of individual genres into a cohesive mix, and "California" shows the band at their finest. This album's unifying twisted beauty drives its songs (showpieces, every one) with metal, the afore-mentioned rockabilly, lounge, beach rock, elevator music, Indian melodies (think India, not Native Americans), twisted music box rock, tribal drumming and Gregorian-like chanting. In case my self-manufactured adjectives are throwing you off, this is all you need to know: this album is completely awesome and original. Buy it.
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TRACK LISTINGS
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Sweet Charity:
This track opens with seagull cries and tasty opening instrumentalization. It's a beautiful song with a catchy chorus, with enough twists and turns to stay interesting. And it somehow bridges perfectly into the next track, a dramatic stylistic shift. . .
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None of Them Knew They Were Robots:
One of my favorite tracks, from a classic genre: death metal funk rockabilly. This song's lyrics may be the deepest and most pointed on the album - no small feat. This is a song that isn't afraid to rock (from the opening dissonant moments giving way to melody to the awesome chorus), or to slow down and wander a bit when it needs to. Get this song's (and for that matter, the whole album's) lyrics off the internet to fully appreciate it.
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Retrovertigo:
A great harmonic track (written by Trevor Dunn, who also wrote the very harmonic "The Holy Filament", later in the album), "Retrovertigo" shows the truth of the cathartic effect of periods of dissonance leading to a melodic resolution. This track really explodes out at the end without losing touch with its overall feel. The band uses distortion on the vocals to great effect particularly on this track. I find this whole record so amazing that I get caught up in every song as I listen to it, making it harder to write this review. Making my sentences fragmented.
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The Air-Conditioned Nightmare:
Opening with a creative parody of a Brian Wilson-like song, "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare" quickly breaks into a great riff featuring over-distorted and computer-modified voices (although explaining exactly how they're modified is beyond me). This song has some of my favorite lyrics on the album - the band's motif of inwardly-dark yet touchingly-poetic and thought provoking lyrics:
"Inside of me today, there is no one. Only asteroids and empty space; a waste."
Alternatingly boppy-quick and slow, "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare" is another highlight track, proving that the band can be dark even when the lyrics are at their sunniest:
"I only see rainbows, now that the bandages are gone. Through my window, there. From the skyscrapers, down to the submarines: Birds and fairies, sanctuaries, atop the rolling hills of hell."
If you could look at my arm right now, you'd see goose-bumps. "Now" being the time I'm writing the review, and not necessarily when you're reading it. Blah blah blah.
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Ars Moriendi:
Another favorite of mine (you realize that I'm going to call every song on this record a "favorite" or a "highlight", don't you?), "Ars Moriendi" is pure classic Bungle. With a completely manic structure (there's a great oxymoron), this song blends eerie Middle Eastern melodies and heavy metal in a style rarely seen this side of System of a Down (although, to be fair, this record was released several years before System began that type of experimentation). A good portion of the lyrics are in foreign languages (I want to say Latin, but I don't want to be presumptuous): "In extremis", "Ride si sapis", "Ave atque vale", etc. They manage to sound cool, despite the fact that I'm an ignorant American who has little Latin experience beyond "e pluribus unum".
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Pink Cigarette:
A highlight (wink) among the more harmonic tracks, "Pink Cigarette" is a sultry little number - loungelike and haunting in its reserved intensity. The harmonies on this track are intentionally exaggerated; this whole record is a subtle parody of popular music, after all! The instruments range from a "diggadiggadigga" western guitar - subtly used - to the expected piano. Sound effects highlight the song - strangely suitable background screams heighten the intensity, and the beeps of a hospital heart monitor permeate the final seconds of the song, cutting it off at what seems like its climax. It's a chilling end to the song, following as it does the line "There's just 2 hours left until you find me dead. . ."
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Golem II: The Bionic Vapour Boy:
Before I grew to appreciate the more melodic songs on this record, "Golem II. . ." was my favorite track. Its main melody is deliciously creepy (following a music box-like intro), and the lyrics - pretty much indecipherable - are suitably epic and cool. Even delivered, as they are, through robot and duck-like voices. Mr. Bungle knows how to pull strange melodies into cohesive songs - I'll give them that.
"Self-perfecting, world-inspecting, lie-detecting. Our instructions, his induction, big production. . . Giga, gilgamesh. Giga-Gigagigagigagiga. . ."
You get the point.
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The Holy Filament:
Probably the slowest, most paced song on the album, "The Holy Filament" is a very vocally-driven track. It's basically one short, soaring harmony repeated twice, with some meandering instrumentalization in the middle.
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part 2
Vanity Fair:
A song with multiple, increasingly-disturbing melodies, "Vanity Fair" is misleadingly simple musically. I would describe it as ballroom a capella with instruments. A contradiction, in terms, of course, but the metaphor-writing portion of my brain is tired (I write reviews between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.). This track is driven by Mike Patton's vocal versatility, and the background singers propel the song. The end of the song features what I can only call a vocal solo - you'll have to listen to it to understand what I mean. Great track, and the last "semi-normal" song on the album.
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Goodbye Sober Day:
A delish meshing,
Mess of mish-mashing pieces,
Song asylum.
(Musical haiku is underappreciated - took me a good minute to write that.) "Goodbye Sober Day" is complete aural insanity, recorded on many, many tracks and completely awesome and representative of Mr. Bungle - no one else could pull this off. On this song (and here I name only a few of the awesome things this song does), three voices sing sentences alternating syllables, creepy elevator music cuts in, only to be broken by Gregorian-like monks chanting a disturbing dirge, and Patton scat-sings to a background of tribal drums. You can hear a lot of Fantomas influence at parts in this track. Finally, I would like to add, "Goodbye Sober Day" features the best opening lyrics I have ever heard in my life:
"Your lips say one thing,
but the drugs say another.
How can I massage
this inter-galactic ulcer?"
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Wow! Thanks for reading my review! Please vote if you like it!
Contact me at mrclumpy@gmail.com
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