Commentary / Reviews

My first exposure to the work of Mike Patton came about 10 years ago, when the song "Epic" by Faith No More was all over the radio. I alternately liked/disliked it, since I couldn't fully appreciate Patton's vocal style.

Fast-forward to the year 2000, where I literally find a copy of California by Mr. Bungle waiting to be heard. I was aware of the band, but didn't know much beyond the fact that Patton formed the band even before he joined Faith No More, and that they collaborated with John Zorn. I put the album on with no preconceived ideas, almost expecting not to like it. Well, since I am here writing this, that was obviously not the case. I was completely, utterly, totally blown away.

After playing the album five times in a row, I still felt the need to give it another spin. It is music that defies description, but if I had to try and explain it I would put them in the general area of Ween: An amalgam of different styles that is everything but also nothing at the same time. The most basic elements are metal, funk, and jazz, but to only look at it from this perspective is too limiting. Coupled with the dynamic and eccentric vocalizing of Patton, the songs go in a million directions at once.

But don't get the wrong idea -- this is far from the Mike Patton show. The whole band (which has managed to keep a steady line-up from day one) is top-notch, and can out-metal most metal bands, and out-jazz most jazz bands. Check out the different styles of guitarist Trey Spruance, and the amazing sax play of Clinton "Bär" McKinnon. Take a listen to the samples for "Vanity Fair," "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare," and "None of Them Knew They Were Robots," to get a glimpse of the broad spectrum that is contained therein. Heck, listen to them all. Each and every song stands on its own, but also fits together perfectly with the rest.

I can never just listen to one or two tracks on California, I always play it front to back, and multiple times in one sitting, at that. Pick this up, and revel in its genius. If you can approach this album with an open mind, I'm sure you will love it. It even turned this die-hard rock n' roller into a Bungle fan for life. (January 10, 2001)

Andrew Shal (production assistant) for CDNOW Digital Department

With CALIFORNIA, Mr. Bungle has largely ditched its infamous jazz/thrash/circus sound (especially evident on the group's first album) for an even more varied cinematic aesthetic that both embraces and gleefully subverts traditional pop structures. Simply put, this is probably as accessible as Bungle is bound to get, and the results are amazing in both their inventiveness and scope. (As stated in the album's tongue-in-cheek press release, CALIFORNIA shows "evidence of a rock band pretending to have roots in rock music.")

Opening with the lounge-laced "Sweet Charity," the album soon shifts to the sci-fi rockabilly/swing stylings of "None of Them Knew They Were Robots" and then to the crooning melodic pop of "Retrovertigo." On other dynamic compositions such as "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare" and "Goodbye Sober Day," Bungle's quick-change genre-hopping is surprisingly seamless, with vocal gymnast Mike Patton acting as the conductor, narrator, and tour guide. "Pink Cigarette" is pure pulp-mystery music, while "The Holy Filament" wouldn't sound out of place on the BRAZIL soundtrack. Although these songs are ridiculously layered with hundreds of instrument and vocal tracks, CALIFORNIA doesn't sound overly complex, revealing only the finest of Mr. Bungle's warped yet playful traits.

Nobody ever accused Mr. Bungle of being suckers for a good melody. The syncopated blasts of cartoonish noise that fill 1991's Mr. Bungle and 1995's Disco Volante are one part speed metal and one part Speedy Gonzalez. Initially, the band served as a more aggressive outlet for singer Mike Patton, widely known for his work in Faith No More. But with Faith No More no more, Patton and Mr. Bungle decided to sweeten the Bungle batter with a little songcraft. California boasts harmonies (yes, harmonies!) that would make the Brothers Wilson proud. Opening with a chorus of seagulls and crashing waves that gives way to slide guitar, strings, and Patton singing (not screaming), the poppy yet symphonic "Sweet Charity" announces that this is not your bike messenger's Mr. Bungle album. Songs like the easy strummin' "Retrovertigo," the sultry Scott Walker-esque "Pink Cigarette," and the orchestral "Vanity Fair" make California 1999's golden-hair surprise.

Bill Crandall

Mr Bungle make records like a band falling down a spiral staircase of rock sub-genres– occasionally finding their feet before a death-metal guitar or twisted saxophone cascades from the steps above adding new momentum to their accelerating musical helix. California, their third album, sees Mike Patton and cohorts imparting a new found control and purpose to their music not present on either 1991’s self-titled debut or 1995’s Disco Volante. The opening track, “Sweet Charity”, glides with sweeping strings into the percussive garage-stomp of “None Of Them Knew They Were Robots” before the plugs are pulled for the near-whispered trip-hop ballad, “Retrovertigo”. The finest moment on the album comes in the shape of “The Holy Filament” – a beautifully cinematic construction that brings to mind an unlikely marriage of The Residents and Steely Dan. Compared to the madness of their earlier releases, the controlled lunacy of these tracks feels neither contrived or unconsidered – California is by far Mr Bungle’s best album.

The Rough Guide To Rock

If you don't like the direction that Mr. Bungle is headed in a particular song, just wait a minute. It'll change. Sure, the opening track on their latest album, "Sweet Charity," sticks fairly close to atmospheric pop a la Burt Bacharach, with subtle doo wop and Brazilian ornaments here and there. But after that, all bets are off. Before you know it you're hearing soul, surf, thrash, polka, flamenco, metal, and prog rock. And that's just track four, "The Air Conditioned Nightmare."

This is rock at its most eclectic and democratic, masticating musical references from the past thousand years into a steaming paella. Needless to say, it may not be to everyone's taste, but fans of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Residents will delight in the sly manipulations of time signatures and genre juxtapositions.

The best way to approach this goofy work is to remember that the guys who made it don't take it seriously, so you shouldn't either. Keep that in mind and nobody gets hurt. (7-5-99)

Tim Sheridan

Four years after Disco Volante, Mr. Bungle returns with California, which immediately distinguishes itself from its predecessors — it's probably their most heavily orchestrated record to date and their most melodic overall, as well as the least dependent on rock styles. That's certainly not to imply that this is a tame or immediately accessible record, nor that Mr. Bungle has suddenly gone sane. There is a stronger lounge-music orientation to the group's trademark rapid-fire genre-hopping; we hear more pop, swing, rockabilly, country & western, bossa nova, Hawaiian and Middle Eastern music, jazz, Zappa-esque doo wop, arty funk, post-rock, space-age pop, spaghetti-Western music, warped circus melodies, and even dramatic pseudo-new age, plus just a smidgen of heavy metal. Sure, some of those sounds have appeared on Mr. Bungle records past, but the difference this time is the focus with which the band deploys its arsenal. California is their most concise album to date, clocking in at around 45 minutes; plus, while the song structures are far from traditional, they're edging more in that direction, and that greatly helps the listener in making sense of the often random-sounding juxtapositions of musical genres (assuming, of course, that you're supposed to even try to make sense of them). As with any Mr. Bungle album, California requires at least a few listens to pull together, but its particular brand of schizophrenia isn't nearly as impenetrable as that of Disco Volante, even if it will still make you marvel at the fact that such a defiantly odd, uncommercial band records for Warner Brothers.

— Steve Huey

California, the third album from Mr. Bungle, finds itself awash in a storm of frenzied sonic dissonance, slanted and enchanted half-melodies, and the typical, musical dementia that follows the bands of Mike Patton. In other words, it's brilliant.
One suspects that with the demise of Faith No More and the lackluster response to the one-off group Fantomas, Patton had more time to spend with his original Bay Area sideshow.

California recalls the spontaneous and frantic, but still perversely cohesive, sounds of the band's first LP and early demos -- not the fragmentation of Disco Valente -- culminating in a dizzying sound that lies somewhere between a haunted circus and the cartoon scores of Carl Stalling.

On the songs "None of Them Knew They Were Robots" and the closing "Goodbye Sober Day," Patton trapezes from smooth, lounge-like crooning to rock-anthem shouting to mouth-turning sarcasm to lullaby whispering -- often in the same verse. Bassist Trevor Dunn and the rest of the band aptly follow, able to move from jazzy chord progressions to gargantuan riffs on a dime.

There's something schizophrenic and utterly out of control with Mr. Bungle's antics, particularly with Patton, but that's ultimately the deep-rooted allure of this band. Love it or hate it, Mr. Bungle shows you the other side of the funhouse mirror. (July 19, 1999)

Joseph Patel

Predicting what the extraordinary Mike Patton will do next is as futile as explaining astrophysics to an infant. You're in for a surprise if you're expecting California to continue the goofball fusion of rap, speedmetal and smoky club jazz found on the band's previous efforts, Mr. Bungle and Disco Volante. Mr. Bungle has taken a dose of Valium to ease its schizophrenic psychosis, but California still exhibits multiple personalities. The album is an amalgam of noises - a carnival of keyboards, explosions, calliope organs and crunchy guitars, along with those Patton-ted, over-the-top whispers, knee-jerk screams and whacked-out harmonies. Such otherworldly, frenetic emissions make the record resemble the music that accompanies your favorite Saturday morning cartoons. Mr. Bungle's eclectic juices flow throughout the beachy sounds and near-falsetto crooning of the cool "Sweet Charity" and the smooth, doo-wop experiment, "Vanity Fair." In Faith No More and Fantomas, Patton hinted at the powers of his mouth. With Mr. Bungle's latest album, he's found the open-ended outlet that allows him to manipulate his phonemes to deranged perfection. (7/12/99, p.3)

Few records embody such wild-ride adventure as California. Consider the final track, Goodbye Sober Day: piano rumba, a Sparky electronic voice intones the title, cut to slow dance, some explosions, a spoofy vibes interlude, then a dense choir drone with a Moslem call-to-prayer erupts into lunatic Balinese monkey chant vocal percussion battling gruesome black metal guitar. That†s just one track out of ten. None Of Them Knew They Were Robots and The Holy Filament attain comparable collective craziness and allthe rest are in there pitching and rolling. With five keyboard-players, the world is Mr. Bungle's oyster and they gobble it down by the dozen.

Phil Sutcliffe

Q Magazine (2/00, p.90) - 3 stars out of 5

Quick Quotes

Spin (11/99, p.186) - 7 out of 10
...CALIFORNIA's meticulous jump-cutting-bachelor-pad, Bollywood, Tuvan village, and beyond - coheres thanks to their masterful use of space and ambience..."
Alternative Press (8/99, p.93) - 4 (out of 5) - "...CALIFORNIA is the luau before the typhoon....experimental, catchy, tongue-in-cheek...