Mike Patton United States

"Being a Mike Patton fan I decided to check out his two solo albums released under his own name. I first got “Pranzo Oltranzista” which was an excellent avant-garde release in the vein of some of John Zorn’s works. Ignoring all warnings I picked up this one too eventually and well, this certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. This album was recorded in various hotel rooms in 1995/96 during a Faith No More tour, and the only instruments used are Patton’s vocals and a track mixer. Patton basically makes some random noise with his mouth and then often mixes it into something even more bizarre than it already is. Sometimes the result actually works well and there are several tracks here that actually are very interesting to listen to but unfortunately, 45 minutes with all tracks only be in this style quickly get too much and rather swamps the project rather than making it into something extraordinary. I’m not saying that there isn’t variety here cause this album is very varied all the time, kinda like Fantômas’ first album without instruments, yet it gets too much after a while even though it is very original. This album is really inaccessible too and is one of the best examples of a “like it or hate it” album. I think most people will hate it rather than liking it.

A very interesting release; bizarre, noisy and pure weirdness is the best descriptions I can give to this one. Unfortunately I can’t recommend this one to anyone but the most hardcore Patton fans, or people who wants a highly experimental vocal album. I would have given it more than 4/10 for its interesting and original concept, but it’s inaccessibility and noisy approach only merits it to 4/10 on my scale. Patton collectors and fans only!"