Tomahawk

Album review

Another Patton supergroup. Good god, this man is relentless, not to mention a complete and utter musical visionary and a mind-blowing and standard-warping genius. No review of Tomahawk can go without mentioning the personnel behind this project, which mostly speaks for itself: Mike Patton of uncountable amazing projects, Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, John Stanier of Helmet, Kevin Rutmanis of the Melvins. This album sold thousands of copies before it was even recorded. What results meets and exceeds every expectation -- a sadistic, scatological birthing of shapeshifting, Jesus Lizardian/King for a Day-era Faith No More textures and assaults, exquisitely layered with Patton's ridiculously amazing heaving, moaning, screeching, crooning, seething, muttering. While it is certainly more straightforward than any of Patton's other post-FNM projects to date, no one could rightfully accuse Tomahawk of being an intentionally mass-marketable band, as some Patton fans want to claim. An album with so many refences to murder, masturbation, feces, sodomy, and perversion just doesn't seem to yearn for radio-friendly status. Jeffrey Dahmer could have dinner to this. Moody, violent, beautiful, sarcastic, vomitive, silly, heartstopping.

© Blake Butler /TiVo