Former Faith No More singer Mike Patton seems to have side projects on his side projects. Having brought his avant-metal outfit Fantomas - whose last album consisted of deconstructed movie themes - down this way in August, Patton returns again this week with Tomahawk.
It's yet another Patton-fronted alt-rocksupergroup consisting of former Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison, former Helmet/Mark of Cain drummer John Stanier and Melvins bassist Kevin Rutmanis.
As that line-up suggests, their self-titled debut album sounds like a hard rock band, one which sounds part Stooges, part Black Sabbath, and many parts Patton's bellicose vision and vocal weirdness.
Through the band's wiry attack, he weaves much gravel-voiced conspiratorial whispering, flyaway operatic high notes and blackly comedic lyrics.
It has echoes of FNM, especially on the lush beginnings of POP 1 (on which the breathless chorus is: "This beat could win me a Grammy"). They have their ponderous moments - maybe you have to love all his funny voices as much as Patton does to stick with it. But there's no denying Tomahawk's whiplash riff-power on the likes of Sir Yes Sir or Flashback.
Patton also appears as a predominant voice on the strange, often hilarious album by Nathaniel Merriweather - basically producer Dan the Automator of Gorillaz fame in a moustache.
Patton is the Lee Hazlewood to Jennifer Charles' Nancy Sinatra (or the Serge Gainsbourg to her Jane Birkin) through a series of lounge-friendly hip-hop-powered duets.
There are guest turns from Damon Albarn, Prince Paul of De La Soul, and Afrika Bambaataa, songs cool enough to carry their Hitchcock-inspired titles (To Catch A Thief, Lifeboat and Strangers on a Train) and some which just brim with good advice (Herbs, Good Hygiene and Socks). It's one serious social lubricant of an album to be filed somewhere between Barry White and something ruder.
