Review Summary: This is a legendary experimental rock album with a few failed experiments. But when a particular melody, rhythm, or vibe strikes just right, it’s certifiably rad.
Make no mistake, California is a great album. It's worth a listen for anyone who identifies as a fan of underground rock music. But it's not an album without flaw. For me, this is an album of immense creativity and subversion, many times to its benefit, but occasionally to its detriment. In this review, I will provide a little context and access what I think works and what doesn't on this legendary album.
California local yokel, Mike Patton (of Faith No More fame), also made some waves in the late 80’s / early 90’s with Mr. Bungle’s early works. Their unique take on experimental genre-bending avant-garde buzzword rock music ensured them a must-listen for fans of underground music. Their third full-length album, California, is regarded as their more accessible album. From what I've heard of their first and second albums, I’d wager that to be at least a little true.
The album opens chill enough with “Sweet Charity.” Clearly still genre-bending but the lines being blurred aren’t as knee-jerking as found on prior albums. This track has a lot to love: interesting chord progressions, expressive vocal performance, heaps of sonic texture play between the extra percussion and synthesizer. The only low-point on it is the fadeout at the end. I firmly believe fadeouts are the laziest way to end a song. And on album so creatively ambitious, it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. Like, the song opens with that beach and bird noise, so why not slip back into that? Imagine the song as a wave crashing on the shore and receding back. Minor complaint here. It's a pretty great opening track.
The next three songs help to flesh-out and establish the vibe of the album. The sun drenched lethargy of the opener gets shrugged off quick with the uptempo shuffling beginning of “None Of Them Knew They Were Robots.” It's proper surf-rock film-noir madness in full swing. And I hear this as a recall for fans to wild nature of their earlier releases. The track has heaps of cool ideas and dynamic changes. And a great outro to boot. But! It’s a little too messy for the 6 minute run-time, like, it gets to a point where all the fun interesting dynamics play becomes kinda predictable. They probably could've reeled the fish back in a bit more on this one. Then “Retrovertigo," a sinister sounding ballad, like a serial killer who’s murdered your family but decides to sing you a lullaby instead. The melodies get more and more earwormy with repeated listens. Also the big booming distorted drums in the latter half of the track seem to be taking the piss out of the archetypal arena ballad song form; a middle finger to Bon Jovi, perhaps? If so, I'm down for it. Finally, “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare” is a deeper dive into the schizophrenic surf-rock vibes of the first two tracks with great vocal melodies and a zany collage of song sections. The shorter run-time also benefits the digestibility of the track making it stand up above “None Of Them Knew They Were Robots” for me.
The balance of excellently aimed creativity vs occasional missteps, up to this point, is leaning hard towards the former. But here is where I find the album to start meandering and losing focus. “Ars Moriendi” uproots the vibe of the album. The very middle-eastern feel of the melodies and instrumentation really leaves the surfy California vibe behind (save for a few passages of slapback guitar riffs). And this all gets swirled together with some alt metal moments making the whole song comes off like an overwhelming/over-written System of a Down B-Side. Some parts are pretty cool but I don’t see what this does for the album. It's like introducing more characters before developing the one’s we’ve already got. Then later on, Mr. Bungle are actively trying to dump on the vibe they’d created with “Golem II: The Bionic Vapour Boy.” This track with its King Gizzard on bath salts vibe really has no business on the album. I mean, maybe as a hidden-track, it could've been alright. But damnit, this track is jammed awkwardly between the haunting 50’s beach rock radiance of "Pink Cigarette" (great song) and spacier sparser funeral feels of "The Holy Filament” (personal favorite).
Mr. Bungle closes the album fairly well. “Vanity Fair” has a funky doo-wap vibe that connects with the overall atmosphere of the album. And “Goodbye Sober Day” has them wearing their Zappa influence a bit more on their sleeve. I loved the slow down in the choruses, and the vocal solo at 2:20 is so weird, but too awesome not to get on bored with. Also when the heavy guitars come in, that System of a Down sound gets weaved in so much more naturally and enjoyably. The outro is like the whole album being set ablaze. Wildfires being somewhat of a prevailing feature of their home-state, I reckon it's a pretty sick way to end the final moments of the album.
Overall, I enjoyed this album quite a lot. But it has some flaws, like: some songs seem to dilute the formula instead of adding to it, and with regard to song structures, at times it goes too far off-the-rails in a way that doesn't compliment the song (instead feeling like subversion for subversion's sake). This is a legendary experimental rock album with a few failed experiments. But when a particular melody, rhythm, or vibe strikes just right, it’s certifiably rad.
