MR. BUNGLE — Disco Volante (review)

Album · 1995 · Metal Related

4.5/5 · 2011-05-19
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Little more can be said about the diverse talent of Mike Patton. Along with his seemingly limitless array of genres he can play, Patton is a multi-instrumentalist and has thousands of vocal techniques, and has been able to perform sounds live thought unthinkable. Along with Patton is a few members that unfortunately have not had the same amount of limelight, Trevor Dunn and Trey Spruance, who have since Mr. Bungle have gone on with Patton to create this diverse avant-garde attitude music with so many influences. Nothing really describes what this crew can do like this album, Disco Volante.

If you look at Disco Volante within the context of their other two albums, it really sounds nothing like them. However, with an album like Disco Volante, there's really no album that sounds remotely like it. It doesn't really have an explicit sound, because the tracks on it are so diverse. There's sludge, techno, folk, funk, jazz, rock, death metal, and probably a thousand other things to find on it, often changing within songs. Hence, you can only really describe the whole of the album as avant-garde, and when you go into all the little pieces, you maybe and only maybe can describe the sound of it.

One good example of this is the song "Carry Stress in the Jaw". It opens up with free jazz saxophone going all over the place (featuring John Zorn, no less!), the rest of the band busts into quick paced free jazz with Patton singing dissonant atmospheric vocal drones over it, when out of nowhere, heavy distorted death metal guitar busts in, turning a weird jazz piece into a complete thrashfest. It goes back to more of the jazz and the pattern repeats itself more, until it all busts out, and we are treated to an unusual midtempo theater organ piece with an old man speaking humorous dialogues all over it. The song has plenty more elements than can be described succinctly in this review, so that's where I will end describing it, and that's only one song! There's still 11 more to go!

This is why Bungle gets so much praise, because of their incredibly diverse music that at the turn of a dime can switch drastically into something wildly different. At the same time, some of the songs are (almost, not really) conventional. One of the best examples is "Desert Search for Techno Allah", which is a fun, danceable track featuring plenty of techno synths and Middle Eastern percussion, which sounds exactly like its title implies. "After School Special" is another song that has an almost conventional structure with a couple verses and chorus, though it is quiet and moody and features some prominent xylophone, so it's hardly conventional. "Merry Go Bye Bye/Nothing" is a perfect example of their sound, as it goes into a very bright and upbeat surf rock song that is easy to sing along to. Then, after a couple verses Patton switches from an easy going singing voice into a drastic black metal type shriek, and all the other instruments blast into thrashing avant-garde extreme metal madness, completely out of the blue.

As far as other songs, all of them are highlights, weird as they are. "Everyone I went to High School With Is Dead" is a great, sludgy opener, "Violenza Domestica" is a French film soundtrack sounding tune, and Platypus is a punky fast paced metal song with some great jazz interplay (with xylophone!), and very complex. "The Bends" is a real treat, as it's a multi part, jazz-infused soundtrack to the horrors of the ocean depths. For the most part, though, keep in mind that there's not an overabundance of metal. In keeping with the idea that you can't really describe the album in a single genre, you can't call it a metal album. Some songs have those elements, but it hardly has much example. So go into listening thinking of it as something other than a metal album.

In conclusion, if someone's looking to get into the unusual and experimental side of Mike Patton (basically anything but Faith No More), then Disco Volante may be the perfect example of it. The only limit to the amount of enjoyment on the album is the listener's patience, as there is certainly a lot to digest. That being said, once the avant-garde weirdness is embraced and you've listened to the album thoroughly, it should certainly become clear why this absolutely bizarre album is lauded as it is.