ADULT THEMES FOR VOICE

Mike Patton has one of the greatest vocal ranges around. Best known for his work with Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, the man is a legend, well-known for his eccentric personality and remarkably inventive music. Keeping that in mind, there's no reason why 'Adult Themes For Voice' should have been such a travesty. Mike Patton has no dearth of creative energy, and his voice can be challenging and beautiful all at once. What we have here though is something that's weird, without necessarily being creative. Instead of using his voice to its potential, Patton defaults on cheap gimmicks and bad humour. Listening to street traffic is more entertaining than this.

It feels odd that such a musical intelligence like Mike Patton has created one of the worst albums I have ever heard, and I only wish it wasn't true. Created with a four track portastudio, I imagine it took more time to think out the thirty four stupid song titles than it took to compose this, that is, if a composition stage ever took place. To put it bluntly; 'Adult Themes For Voice' consists of forty plus minutes of Patton making various noises into a lo-fi microphone. To Patton's credit, the listener is privileged to a wide variety of different vocal noises, from monkey screams, to monkey howls, to heavy breathing, and even a few hand claps thrown in there for the sake of variety. Often, Patton's screaming ends up sounding like harsh radio static, due to the cheap recording.

Musical open mindedness is obviously an issue with every avant-garde album a listener will come across, but not every experiment is genius. Save for a couple of bland echo effects, this is a forty minute exercise in complete, utter ambivalence on the part of Mike Patton. The only thing here is his voice, and if 'Adult Themes' was all you had to go by, you would not even guess that he may be one of the greatest vocalists of the modern age. An experiment with vocal noise could have been brilliant if it was done the right way, but this is at best a squandered concept, and at worst, the most tasteless waste of talent I have ever come across.

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