Fantômas

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I grew up in an area of the UK where Heavy Metal, a genre widely held in disdain, was KING! As a regular, but undiscriminating gig-goer, I therefore ended up seeing a shit load of metal bands in concert. As a non-fan, but as an open-minded soul (while, as open-minded as any grumpy bastard teenage boy), I didn't enjoy a single one of these gigs - which must have run into hundreds - in its entirety. But every single one of them had great moments: generally beginnings - the show opening, the start of certain songs (I remember Lemmy shouting "This song's called Go To Hell" and flames leaping up from the drum riser), the first seconds of the obligatory guitar and drum solos. Genuinely thrilling moments. I didn't listen to Metal for years, until listening to Napalm Death and the Earache lot sent me on the trail of similar extremities and I ended up checking out Slayer and Anthrax and Metallica. And even on record, fifteen years after attending those gigs, the feeling was still the same for me: there were all these jaw-dropping, adrenalin-rush incidents, but incidents that you had to wait for. So along come Fantômas with an hour of such moments, and, to be frank, I feel 15 all over again (which is saying something, believe me). Fantômas are a speed-freak's dream come true. They are former Faith No More frontman Mike Patton, ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, Buzz Osbourne, guitarist with Bay area drone-rockers The Melvins and Patton's Mr Bungle co-worker, bassist Trevor Dunn. Elsewhere in motion I've recently suggested that Patton and Dunn have helped make the rock album of 99 with Mr Bungle's California. I ain't about to be shaken from that, but I gotta say, Fantômas' eponymous debut is snapping at California's heels. The album's front cover artwork presents the album as the soundtrack to some invented horror-slasher-sci fi flick, but its liner notes point elsewhere: this album is, apparently, Book One, with each of its thirty anonymous tracks describing a page (from a comic or graphic novel, perhaps). The longest 'page' clocks in at 5:07; the shortest at 0:32; most barely scrape 90 seconds. So we're talking information-intensive here. For sure, this harks back to Napalm Death and co, but also to Zorn's Naked City, circa-Torture Garden (itself openly indebted to ND and their Earache Records fellow-travellers). Patton,of course, has worked with Zorn, and it's clear they share a fascination with the picaresque, with forcing whole stories into tiny spaces. With Fantômas, Patton is telling gruesome tails all the way, stories etched out in brief, brief bursts of huge riffing, shrieked vocals, a hint of a fuzz-bass solo here, a drum kit casually beaten half to death there. It's malevolent stuff, but it's cartoon-malevolence, and revelling in the fact. It goes without saying that the playing is awesome (I include Patton in this - I can think of no other rock singer who truly uses his voice as an instrument), with each of these minute collages, and all their turn-on-a-coin changes of tempo, mood and arrangement executed not just flawlessly but with an unswerving commitment to have fun. It seems that Fantômas is the inaugural release for Ipecac, a joint venture between Patton and Caroline Distribution. Given Patton's evident good taste and restless energy, I can't wait to hear more. I'll have to go now- I need to go and have a mosh.