Hard to believe that it has been twenty-one years since Mr bungle last danced into our field of vision with California, but then Mike Patton and his merry men never did have the longest of attention spans, Patton in particular a musical polymath as liable to spit out an album of ambient jazz as a metallic onslaught. It was therefore of no surprise to any fan of the band that Mr Bungle surprisingly reunited in 1999 and then embarked on three shows in which they played their entire, 1986 demo, The Wrath Of The Easter Bunny, in full. Obviously. The shows were met with equal parts amusement and condemnation and the band, undoubtedly delighted to have pissed off as many people as they thrilled, promptly announced they’d be re-recording the demo (alongside three period tracks which didn’t make it as far as the demo, namely Glutton For Punishment, Methamatics and Eracist). With the core trio of Patton, Trey Spruance and Trevor Dunn joined by Scott Ian, Dave Lombardo and Rhea Perlman (providing narration on Anarchy Up Your Anus), it’s a typically a-typical Mr Bungle offering in which you should expect the unexpected…
…Like, for example, the shimmering beauty of album opener Grizzly Adams, which sounds like the soundtrack to a low-budget horror flick. You should expect the unexpected, like the unstoppable thrash fury of Anarchy Up Your Anus, which sounds like Green Jelly having a fist fight with Anthrax. With Mike Patton in full-on King-For-A-I-Don’t-Give-A-Fuck mode, Anarchy… is either the greatest song ever, or a joke taken waaaaay too far. For my money, it’s the former – but then I could happily listen to Mike read the phone book, so take that how you will. The endlessly unpleasant Raping Your Mind essentially does exactly what the title suggests, Mike doing his best Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza over a punk-infused cacophony that sounds like a riot’s broken out in your living room. Strangely, the promo version omits Hypocrites / Habla Espanol O Muere… so it’s straight on to the band’s anthem, Bungle Grind, which apes the lo-fi shenanigans of the nascent black metal scene, all hyper-speed riffing and death-trudge chugging. Then, just as you think it’s all going to be warp-speed riffs and guttural roars, the band do an abrupt volte-face and offer up the ludicrous, eight-minute Methematics, which opens on a mid-tempo groove and proceeds to batter it to death with a serious of thrash-assault take downs. It kind of feels like the band took all their half-formed song ideas and fused them into one epic, dizzying medley (which is probably exactly what they did do), creating sonic carnage in the process.
Mr Bungle tip a nod to the Melvins on Eracist (one of only two songs to be credited exclusively to Patton), with its sludgy riff and gang vocals; although listeners will probably spend more time wondering how the band managed to maintain the unhinged speed of Spreading The Thighs Of Death over six gruelling minutes. The band dabble in unhinged grind (reminiscent of Fantomas) on the Corrosion of Conformity cover Loss For Words, before returning to a more obvious thrash variant on Glutton For Punishment, which may well be the band’s name for the listener. It all comes to an end with the gloriously over-the-top Sudden Death, which sounds like Primus and Slayer jamming in an abandoned swimming pool. An album highlight, it offers the most ridiculous summation of thrash’s most extreme tendencies, amplified and filtered through Patton’s warped imagination (the track is his).
Musically speaking, Mr Bungle tap into the goofy proto-thrash of early Anthrax, all hyper-speed riffing and overside jam shorts; but, placed alongside Patton’s inimitable vocals, it becomes a parody born out of love for the parent form. With cool artwork and the production doing everything that is needed from it, The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny is a gleefully manic take on early thrash, that rocks hard without taking itself too seriously. A must for Patton fans, we’d recommend the awesome-looking vinyl version – but whatever you do, be sure to check it out. 9/10
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