Label: Ipecac Recordings
Released: Apr 5, 2005 |
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THWACK!! ZOOM!! BOING!!! After 2004’s 74-minute exercise in horror-movie tension, Delirium Cordia; Suspended Animation is 30 songs (and 43 minutes) worth of ADD-fueled release. Combining their psychotic grindcore/noise bursts with cartoon music and sound effects, Fantomas have created a wonderful soundtrack for axe-murderers who haven’t lost touch with their inner-child.
Overall, it is difficult to discern one song from the next – not due to the lack of diversity, but actually because there is so much diversity. Songs change from cartoon-effects to metal breakdowns to jazz before your brain has time to process any of it. Therefore, the songs never really have a finished feel. It’s kind of like the members of Fantomas robbed a candy-store and afterwards, ran amuck in a toy-store while recording this album.
“4/2/05” (the songs are each named for a day in April – calendar included!) begins with Fantomas trademark grind before turning into a series of boinging cartoon noises and then morphing into a jazz break straight out of Twin Peaks. “4/12/05” is equally creepy and amusing. It begins with children giggling and playing with what sounds like a broken Jack-In-The-Box before the music launches into manic starts and stops with Mike Patton spouting gibberish over it all. “4/10/05” begins with a Speak And Spell of sorts spelling out F-A-N-T-O-M-A-S and has some metallic xylophone breakdowns that you can actually latch onto, for a few seconds, at least.
Overall, on Suspended Animation, Fantomas manage to combine cartoon music and metal without sounding gimmicky. It definitely ain’t your parents’ Merry Melodies, but for those of you who always wished Wile E. Coyote would catch the Roadrunner and beat him to a bloody pulp, this is essential listening.
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