MOONCHILD

Although I've only dipped my toes into John Zorn's discography, one of the things I enjoy about him is his wide range of styles he covers. Every time I'm looking for a new Zorn album it's like opening presents, you never know what you're going to get. That is one of the things that makes me want to keep on looking for his music. Although the results aren't always good, it's all part of the game.

The first thing one may notice is that Zorn isn't actually playing any instruments, instead he's in the background of all the madness composing it! The line-up consist of Mike Patton at the vocal department, Trevor Dunn on guitar and Joey Baron on drums. So the line-up is made up of 2/3 of Fantomas and their sound is also similar to Fantomas as well. Mike Patton, as always, delivers some pretty inhuman scream, shrieks, roars, weird babbling etc. that if they didn't surprised you in his previous works it'll surely do it here. Plus one can't help but laugh at him whether it's because of his weird sounds or just for sheer amazement. Trevor Dunn and his guitar sound pretty normal actually considering the style of music, but never being left behind in the madness. Joey Baron is the second most impressive member in the group with his excellent drumming carrying a lot of energy and nice beats when the music looses focus, but in the majority of the time his beats and rhythms are pretty strange just like the music demands it.

Now for the bad part. Although being an avant-garde record it's sometimes too avant-garde for it's own good. There are some good songs in the album like Hellfire, Abraxas and others, there are many songs that just don't go anywhere like Moonchild or songs that just doesn't hold any interest like 616. Thanks to those songs the album takes a nose dive in the wrong direction, but no need to worry because in their next album, Astronome, they will improve in those little problems.