Christ, what a weird band.
Former Faith No More frontman Mike Patton is loudly creating an unparalleled body of work within the avant-metal genre, using two different supergroups–Tomahawk (a more conventional, song-based outfit starring former members of Helmet and Jesus Lizard) and Fantomas (the most experimental metal band ever, featuring members of the Melvins and Slayer)–and his own label, Ipecac.
Forget the bungling prog-rock perversions of Mr. Bungle (another Patton side project). The man’s rare genius is slowly blossoming into full-blown, self-nurtured, literary-minded psychopathology.
Consider the album art for Fantomas’ brand-new, 55-minute masterpiece (essentially one really long track), Delirium Cordia: Surgical Sound Specimens From the Museum of Skin. It’s made up of photos from Max Aguilera-Hellweg’s book The Sacred Heart: pictures of surgeons coldly carving up live human beings. There’s even a quote from famed writer/surgeon Richard Melzer, making the connection between the scalpel and musical composition.
Fantomas’ music is even more ambitious. The band’s earlier albums–1999’s Fantomas (a page-by-page sonic adaptation of the French crime/horror comic from which the band takes its name) and 2001’s The Director’s Cut (covers of horror-film scores from Rosemary’s Baby and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer)–were just warm-ups for the glory that is Delirium Cordia. (The only thing that comes close to matching the power and scope of this collection is Sleep’s Jerusalem, an hour-long, Sabbath-copping, stoner-rock ode to marijuana.) I would definitely discourage the listener from taking drugs prior to playing this CD. Or driving a car. Or eating. This album demands concentration, in order to appreciate its roller-coaster-from-hell qualities. At most, one could maybe get away with popping in Jesus Franco’s The Diabolical Dr. Satan on the VCR–but even that’s risky.
Delirium delivers one nightmare after another in rapid succession. Patton channels scary sounds: demons hissing, angels dying, God killing. There are no lyrics, just guttural squalling, squeaking, squawking. His band is equally adept at creating evil noise: Drummer Dave Lombardo pounds with primal abandon. Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne conjures black-souled feedback and nightmarish distortion. At times, it’s overwhelming, exhausting, but that’s the point: to push metal music into a completely post-symphonic realm, where Fantomas’ real influences lie: John Cage, Arnold Schoenberg, Philip Glass.
Thinking man’s metal? Not really. Because just when you think Fantomas is heading into avant-classical territory, Lombardo and Osborne arrive, dive-bombing you with Satanic majesty.
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2004.