MR. BUNGLE

If you study these Archives, you'll notice that six of the top-rated seven albums for 1991 are catalogued here as either Progressive Metal or Extreme Prog Metal, which ought to put the appeal of Mr. Bungle's debut effort into better perspective (it was the #10 rated album that year). Lean times indeed for traditional forms of Progressive Rock, but the more hardcore bands were apparently doing very well, even one as irreverent and erratic as Mr. B.

The young group was a second-generation avant-pop ensemble sired by FRANK ZAPPA, but I get the impression they weren't listening to the same music that influenced Uncle Frank: Varèse, Stockhausen, et al. I'm also not entirely convinced their first studio album adds up to a cohesive musical statement, but the level of energy and invention is never less than astonishing. Each of the ten indexed tracks here was built from a dozen or more seemingly random musical phrases and snippets, ranging from chunky metallic guitar riffs to atonal saxophone freakouts to the occasional genuine melody, usually very brief, and surfacing in the mix as if by accident.

The whole thing is wildly (and deliberately) inconsistent, balanced somewhere between a heavy metal klezmer rave and some kind of demented circus soundtrack, minus only the calliopes. The level of musicianship deserves serious kudos, but the band itself doesn't insist on being taken seriously, not with song titles like "Squeeze Me Macaroni" and "My Ass is on Fire". The locker-room humor might be juvenile (don't miss the too-convincing diarrhea sound effect near the end of "Slowly Growing Deaf"), but it makes the album more fun than a barrel of junior high school monkeys.

And yet after a while the unpredictability gets a little too predictable. Were all the speed-freak detours and cut-ups an attempt to organize a surplus of ideas, or a ploy to camouflage the lack of such? It's as if the band was either too impatient to manage an ongoing groove for longer than a single bar, or too hopped up on amphetamines to pause for even a breath.

Maybe it's worth pointing out that the most coherent, least fragmented song here is their ode to onanism ("The Girls of Porn"), complete with pirated movie dialogue. And was it only a coincidence that the immediate next track is titled "Love is a Fist"?

Either way, here's an ideal album for anyone who thinks Les Claypool is too solemn and dignified. Better fans can judge whether or not Mr. Bungle ever matured on later albums. But this rookie effort certainly doesn't hide their potential.

Where's the Kitchen Sink?

When Mr. Bungle's debut album came out in 1991, it was a coup of sorts. Thanks to Mike Patton's success in Faith No More, suddenly an avant-garde rock band from the John Zorn school of Blink-and-You'll-Miss-It, released an album on Warner Brothers, about as "major" as labels get. Faith No More were fairly weird for a popular band, but nothing prepared people for this. The debut album wowed me to no end for a year or so, but after a while, the over-the-top carnival atmosphere and pornographic funk metal tracks lost their novelty for me and I put the group away.

When "Disco Volante" came out, I didn't even consider buying it at first, figuring I'd heard all I needed to from the band already. But when I read a review assuring me it was "100% Uncompromising" (I remember that quote), from a prog rock publication no less, I was intrigued and picked up a copy at the next opportunity.

A complete and utter surprise. This is music wherein the band seemingly wrote down every twisted musical idea that came into their head, and all of it somehow worked its way into this unbelievably dense album. Metal music, while present, is no longer the focus of the band's sound; rather, the pieces seem to fall into two groups - a) songs that present whiplash-inducing changes of style, tempo, and volume several times during the song, and b) songs that explore a single style, but executed in a way designed to sound completely different from what you've heard before.

In the former category, a big thumbs up to "Carry Stress in the Jaw" (note: the original LP version had a hidden track within the grooves of this song; for the CD version, this secret song is just tacked on to the end, and comprises the last 3 minutes or so of the track), "Merry Go Bye Bye", and "Platypus", all of which use (death?) metal as a contrasting element to surf rock, jazz, and lounge. In the latter category, we have the utterly incredible "Desert Search for Techno Allah", a previously unheard-of marriage of electro-techno and Middle Eastern music - this concept was later turned into the basis for an entirely new band, Secret Chiefs 3, by Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance (also highly recommended), Equally memorable is the cinematic "Violenza Domestica", which comes across like a radio drama (in Italian) complete with suspense music and breaking glass.

The album's not perfect, though. At the end of the album, there's about 6 minutes of random percussion noises with occasional tuneless noises that are kind of a waste of time (another "hidden track" tacked onto the end of "Merry Go Bye Bye"). "The Bends" is another track that fans seem divided on. While I think the idea of a 10 minute scary ambient track in the middle of all this madness is an inspired one, and its purpose as an audio depiction of someone getting the "bends" is clear (decompression syndrome, often experienced by deep sea divers), it ultimately fails to produce much effect, and just doesn't have that much going on to justify the length.

A solid 4 stars - and one of the strangest albums Warner Brothers has ever released.

After listening to this album for 5 years, I can safely say that it most definitely a masterpiece of experimental/progressive rock. It took me a year to fully appreciate as when I first listened to this, I was a huge metalhead. But something about Mr Bungle clicked with me, and I definitely feel it changed my life. Lets go down the cliched route of a track-by-track review. It's easy to follow so why the hell not...

Sweet Charity.

Before hearing this, I had already become acclimatized with songs like Platypus and Squeeze Me Macaroni, so when this kicked off I thought 'hang on, it's a bit soft!'. I felt kinda disappointed and bored so i skipped to the next track, None Of Them Knew They Were Robots. Naturally I fell in love with this song instantly as it is more like your typical Bungle craziness. Feeling slightly guilty for dismissing Sweet Charity so quickly, I thought, why not give it another go, this time with an open mind. Oooh... why doesn't this sound pretty! There's seagulls, whistling and pretty slide-guitars oh and some lovely violins, how nice! Then the chorus kicks in... SWEET CHARUH-TAYYYY bom ba da HAAAH etc... YESSS I'm hooked instantly. I find myself in a world of sun, sand and cocktails until..........

None of Them Knew They Were Robots.

........POOF. Sunshine and sambuca no more. Instead, a jagged landscape of evil clowns, haunted merry-go-rounds and those weird mirror things. A real cracker melting such styles as swing, rockabilly and jazz, NOTKTWR really crams everything possible inside 6 schizophrenic minutes. You have saxophones and horns in between odd surf guitar licks, demented swing drums and Patton crrooning, yelping and screaming all in the blink of an eye. You'll find yourself wearing a murderous grin 2 minutes in and if you're like me, imitating Patton's crazy HAR-HIP HAR-HIP J-J-J-JOE while slapping your thighs maniacally. A song that fans of old Bungle will appreciate.

Retrovertigo.

What's this? A normal sounding Mr Bungle song? Never! No weird cartoon noises or funky slap-bass? Yet instead we're given a straight-laced pop ballad. I say this as if it's a bad thing. It really isn't.... Retrovertigo contains possibly Mike Patton's most gorgeous vocal performance ever. Just listen to that chorus, you will realise that the guy can really sing! And sing to the heavens too! It gets real crunchy at the end when the guitars and drums kick in for the last chorus finale. If you have a heart in there, this will take your breath away. Well done Trevor Dunn for writing such a brilliant pop song, why it didn't make number 1 I will never know.....

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare.

This is the first song I ever heard by Mr Bungle, and still is a favourite of mine. How can anyone not love this song??? It has everything you could possibly want to hear in just under 4 minutes. A steaming cauldron of surf rock, metal, doo-wop and bats testicles... it makes you wonder, how can anyone write music like this? Oh, and if you think it sounds awesome on CD, wait til you hear it live. Yes. It's even better. Don't be surprised if you have BA BA BA BA stuck in your head for days. Bungle can sure compose the catchiest tunes since Barbie Girl. Go on. Give it a try!

Ars Moriendi.

What happened when Slayer got into a fight with a Hungarian klezmer band? Thats right. This did. Again, another song that displays Mr Bungle's trademark genre-blending. We have accordions, speed metal guitars, polka drums, and some odd middle-eastern instrumentation with a sprinkling of techno. How can this be possible.. you ask yourself as you read this.. well just you wait and see. Whats great is that Bungle can blend such unassuming and opposing styles without ever sounding contrived or cliched. Another classic dose of insanity.

Pink Cigarette.

There is not one other song on this earth which I hold so dear to my heart. I dare not even justify it by describing it. You need to listen with an open mind and hopefully fall in love the way I did. Again, Mr Bungle have crafted a perfect pop song, as memorable as your first kiss, and just as precious. If your heart doesn't melt by time Patton utters the words 'I...found...a...pink cigarette...' then I'm afraid you don't have a heart. Pure and simple.

Golem II: The Bionic Vapour Boy.

Back to the Bungle everyone knows. Brimming with bleeps and bloops, disco beats, robotic vocal effects and evil glockenspiels, it's impossible not to enjoy yourself as you go through the songs many twists and turns. Ending with a spooky, distant piano melody, Golem II is the true meaning of odd. I love it!

The Holy Filament.

Its hard for me to believe now, but it took me almost a year to appreciate this song. I would always skip straight to Vanity Fair and not really give it the time of day. I finally gave it a chance, and just like Sweet Charity did, it wormed its way under my skin and stayed there. Mike Patton's harmonies are truly astounding on this one. I would have to describe it as a sort of psychedelic/ambient style. Their are lovely violins, piano melodies and strange noises. The only way to fully understand is simply to listen to it and make your own judgement. In a word: beautiful.

Vanity Fair.

Easily the most uplifting track on California. Featuring a doo-wop style, some sexual saxophones and a FLAWLESS performance by King Patton himself, it's an instant winner. Along with Retrovertigo, this is Patton's best vocals by a country mile. Vanity Fair features lyricss about self-castration, but considering other Bungle songs are themed on food-porn, eggs and child-abuse, it's not surprising that they chose song an odd topic to write about. But hey, after all, this is Mr Bungle, so onto the finale..............

Goodbye Sober Day.

What a way to end a perfect album! A tour-de-force of jazz trumpets, crunching metal guitar, futuristic synths before Mike Patton rips your head off with CHAKCHAKCHAKCHAKACHAKA. By the very last seconds of cacophony that end California, you will most likely be left completely astounded and wonder what the hell you've been doing for the past hour.

Once the bug bites it will never let go. An essential album for EVERY music fans collection. Well worth any amount of money you happen to spend after reading this. Oh, you WILL buy it. Don't think you won't. I will come find you otherwise.....

This is a bizarre and enjoyable album. From the start, you know you are in for a good time. The music is a mixture of Funkadelic/Fishbone style funk, a hefty helping of punk , and a strong dose of prog and experimentalism. At the best of times, the album sounds quite a bit like Oingo Boingo gone wild. At the worst of times, the experimentalism devolves into a mush of noise and screaming. The latter I can do without.

The rush of high energy and the anything goes atmosphere makes this album sound like a precursor to the modern prog of The Mars Volta. I would feel safe advising TMV fans to check out this album.

Going Out with a Raised Eyebrow and Big Clown Feet

Mr. Bungle was simply the most important progressive rock band of the 90's. Despite a solid group of direct descendents and innumerable artists that have drawn from Bungle's genre-bending, no one has matched their colossal achievement. CALIFORNIA was the final installment in a trilogy of completely different but simultaneously brilliant albums. Gone is the potty mouth of the debut. Absent is the complete avant-garde aesthetic of DISCO VOLANTE. Instead, we get a more mature and accessible album of (gasp) - songs!!!

While lead singer Mike Patton does not have the prettiest voice in rock, he may have the most versatile instrument of all time. And never is he more melodic than on CALIFORNIA. The bombastic opener "Sweet Charity" has a hummable chorus along with vocal percussion accents. Show music, surf guitars, and even klezmer ideas infuse the album and push the metal of previous albums a bit to the side. As a result, this is the "lightest" of the Bungle albums. Rest assured, there are still sections of pure chaos. "None of Them Knew They Were Robots" takes us from a peyote trip in the desert to a night club in Vegas to the Cantina on Tatooine within the space of 30 seconds. Though there are very heavy parts, most of the song is free of guitar distortion. The closer "Goodbye Sober Day" is one of the best pure music tracks I've ever heard. It literally has almost everything. If some asked me "what song do you wish you had written" I would either say "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" or "Goodbye Sober Day." It's that good.

The extreme eclecticism of this album makes it yet another shock to those who came to Bungle from the metal route via Faith No More. Most casual fans would have jumped ship after DISCO VOLANTE, but even this silly fanboy took awhile to really get into this album. The theatrics and non-rock ethic take awhile. I could also see some coming a jazz / avant angle feeling that sections are simply too "straight." Listening to the full album would destroy that notion, but again this album deceptively listener-friendly in relationship to the band's larger body of work.

I've written more extensively on Bungle in my other two reviews, but the bottom line is that all 3 are essential to understanding the progression of metal and experimental music in general in the 90's. 5/5.

California combines the comparatively conventional song structures and occasional mainstream leanings of Mr. Bungle's self-titled debut album with the bizarre laundry list of musical genres brought to bear on Disco Volante (and the two Secret Chiefs 3 albums which had been released in the meantime) in order to craft this delicious conclusion to the Mr. Bungle three-course meal. Songs like Sweet Charity and Retrovertigo lean towards smooth, slick lounge rock, but just when you think you're safe an avant-garde tidal wave like The Air- Conditioned Nightmare surges forth. Perhaps their least metal-focused album, California is still a good listen for anyone interested in a genuinely avant-garde conception of rock music.

Mr Bungle's debut album was weird, but was mostly rooted in a particular metal subgenre - as a listener you can quickly work out that the band are presenting an avant-garde interpretation of alternative metal, and appreciate it on that basis. Disco Volante, however, is a much trickier proposition; letting their anchor in alt-metal slip, the band deliriously slide between musical genres ranging from death metal to easy listening to free jazz to prog rock polka. This, however, is not random noodling; the compositions here are intricate and reflect the diversifying interests of the band, including the fascination with traditional Arabic music which would go on to become a key ingredient of Secret Chiefs 3.

Whereas the first album presented outrageous vocal gymnastics against a musical backing which usually much more grounded, this time around the musicians are as diverse and versatile in their performances as Mike Patton is with his vocals - and Patton's vocals are even more out of control than they were on the previous album, making full use of the human voice's potential as an instrument. It's easily the most experimental album by Mr Bungle and I'd say it's a key part of their work. That said, unless your tastes in music are incredibly broad you are likely to find some parts of it more compelling than others, so many listeners might find the album uneven.

Having refined their sound with a range of rare cassette-only releases, Mr Bungle's debut album sees them establish themselves as the most terrifying force in avant-garde alternative metal. Unlike, say, Slipknot or Insane Clown Posse, Bungle never let their mask/clown fixation cross the line into the cartoonish, ensuring that they remained a sinister and enigmatic presence at their live gigs of the time.

This is carried through into the sound of the album, in which Mike Patton truly steals the show with his incredible vocal gymnastics. The musical backing doesn't quite hit the bizarre territory it would reach on the following album, but it's still very enjoyable, with Quote Unquote (AKA Travolta) being one of the best opening songs of an album I've ever heard. No Mike Patton fan should be without one.

I'm not even going to bother trying to list all the styles of music Mr.Bungle covers on this album there is no need to because once this band touches it, it instantly becomes Mr.Bungle. Mike Patton is not really singing in the traditional sense all too much through out, nor is anything presented in any sort of traditional way with Disco Volante. It is totally unique. The musicianship is absolutely top notch, what sounds like a complete mess on first listen is really a tightly constructed act of insanity. The song Platypus might be one of the most needlessly complex songs written in the past 25 years. This album is at times the epitome of avant garde it is beautiful and violent, macabre and maniacal. This album is a challenge but the reward is well worth it.

My favorite album of all time. This started my whole appreciation for Mike Patton and his other works. Of course, we shouldn't forget about the other members of this band, for they have also given us a lot to offer from their own arsenals. Now, back to this band. This band is definitely: Weird. It can be difficult to newcomers, but if you give it time, you might even grow to like this album, you might be surprised. All the songs are un-commercialized completely and sound so different that people might think that this band would be unlistenable. Now, that's the idea because Patton and his friends wanted to give us something that would surprise us and even scare us. The most special thing about this album is that it can give different experiences and opinions to different listeners. In other words, everyone has it's own personal feeling about the stuff that Patton sings and the sounds that get packed inside your brain - a very hard-to-forget album. I recommend this album to anyone, who wants to hear something special. A masterpiece.