Mike Patton has a cult fanbase, mostly due to his vocal gymnastics andhis unique sensibilities when fronting a group — c.f. Fantomas, Mr.Bungle, et al — but with Tomahawk he's very much in Rock Band Membermode, not acting as the circus ringleader. This can be a great thing,as the new Tomahawk album shows. The first Tomahawk album was full of aviolent starts and sudden stops but Mit Gasis a 40 minute sampling of smoother (if still bizarre) Tomahawk pieces.Band leader Duane Dennison (Jesus Lizard) continues to lay down acollection of sneaky guitar riffs and licks over the thick, solidlayers of drums and bass guitar. The album's opener, "Birdsong," beginswith imposing bass drones, ominous slide guitar notes and birdsongsamples until a minute in, when the bass comes in and lays the albumbare as a rock and roll record. The guitar sounds sparse throughout therecord, with judicious use of effects and guitar wankery and a fewelectronic sounds for texture. The combination of the guitar's timbreand the band's rocking gives the record an immediacy that I haven'theard in a lot of recent "rock" music. The album has lots of highpoints, and comes across as more comfortable and cohesive thanTomahawk's debut album. There's no doubt that playing live has made theband members more comfortable with each other. There are moments offunkiness, like the wicked "Harelip" with its funky bass and slinkyguitar and Patton's comic crooning "I am the Harelip/Give me one morekiss," and right between the jittering electronic "Capt. Midnight" withits bombastic bridge and guitar that belongs in a David Lynch movie.The pounding "When The Stars Begin To Fall" is followed by the soothingballad "Desastre Natural," equipped with accusatory lyrics sung inspanish. The album comes to an end with "Harem Clowns" and "Aktion13F14." The former is a moody instrumental which features a sampled andrepeated phrase, "I don't know how to read notes," over and over again.It leads into the latter, where a robotic voice reads hand-to-handcombat "how-to" instructions over a hypnotic bassline. Everythingeventually collapses into a clusterfuck of noise followed by a silenceand a beautiful short guitar piece. Fading into nothing is a perfectway to finish off an album with so many peaks. - samples:
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