DISCO VOLANTE

You would be hard-pressed to find more experimental and unaccessible music in the mid-90s than this. Of course, would you expect anything less coming from a band signed to Warner Bros.? Actually the reason Bungle got a major label deal was because when Mike Patton agreed to join Faith No More it was under one condition: that his band Bungle would get a record deal. Odd because FNM themselves were not even signed to Warner Bros. This CD sounds terrific and I find myself having to turn up the volume a lil bit because I'm so used to louder CDs. I have no idea if this has been re-released and remastered, but I hope not; it sounds great the way it is...LEAVE THIS ALONE! Unlike the self-titled previous album, which featured songs that had been around for years already, this has all new music.

Clearly these guys owe a lot to people like Zappa and Zorn, but you also get some death metal and techno influences here. The circus music and ska influences of the last album seem to have disappeared for the most part. In their place you have a stronger jazz feel and some various ethnic influences(Arabic, Italian, etc.) I always thought that "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwaz" was Polish but apparentally it isn't. They use a lot of different instruments on here, many of which I probably don't even know the proper names for. Some of the stuff here may not be for the faint of heart. "After School Special" is about child abuse and at the end you can hear what sounds like a child saying "Why are you touching me?" Of course it's really a sped-up adult voice but the effect is creepy as hell. Parts of "The Bends" can be an aquired taste to say the least; the "Re-Entry" part at the end sounds scary on headphones. It literally sounds like you fell out of the International Space Station and are crashing towards Earth.

My favourites here include "Desert Search For Techno Allah" which sounds like a cross between techno, death metal and Arab music. Doesn't look good on paper but it works. Despite the subject matter of "Violenza Domestica"(sung in Italian) there is a nice little melodic part which I always love hearing. About halfway thru "Carry Stress In The Jaw" the song completely changes and goes into a really upbeat and fun part. Trey Spuance(not Patton) does an impression of an old man on the song. I also like the part in "Platypus" where Patton is talking documentary-style: "The Platypus...can be seen driving a forklift in his habitat". Cracks me up every time. The musicians here are top notch and Patton does his usual vocal acrobatics. Deserves nothing less than 4 stars but may not be everyone's cup of tea.