You might have heard of Mike Patton. Primarily known for his work in Mr Bungle, Faith No More, Fantômas, and Peeping Tom, his career is a record of boundaries pushed and sonic expectations subverted. Through his dynamic, ear-shredding vocal techniques he’s worked with everyone from Sepultura, Merzbow, and Laurie Anderson to Eyvind Kang, Björk and Kool Keith. He’s been deeply embroiled in the avant-garde music scene and famously laughed off offers to join INXS and the Guns ‘n’ Roses spin-off band, Velvet Revolver. He runs Ipecac Records and landed three UK top 20 hits during his time in Faith No More.
The Avett Brothers, by contrast, are good ol’ God-fearing American folks, playing good ol’ God-fearing stadium folk rock for good ol’ God-fearing American folks. They’re essentially the Mumford & Sons of North Carolina. The closest that they’ve come to controversy is a divorce and an album with songs that suggest perhaps not always carrying guns all of the time? And what if America isn’t the most good place, maybe?
Shitting in hotel hair dryers and drinking their own piss, they are not.
So, adopts Mrs Merton voice I wonder what it was that first attracted Mike Patton to the billion+ streamers, The Avett Brothers? Hitching his wagon to their populist folk pop horse is surely just a peculiar coincidence, right?
Let’s hope so because, musically, it’s a travesty. Fourth song, ‘Too Awesome’, appears to have been pilfered from Tenacious D’s offcuts bin and padded further with the lyrical insight of Bill & Ted’s Wyld Stallyns. The fingerpicked guitars and whispered falsetto are overrun by a schmaltzy, sweated-stilton chorus conveniently claiming that “Your beauty is too awesome to explain”. Which is handy as they hadn’t really bothered trying anyway.
The daft lyricism doesn’t stop there. On the lobotomised Father John Misty track, ‘To Be Known’, an Avett simpers “cling clang, I’m dragging the chains”, which makes ‘Marley and Marley’ from The Muppets Christmas Carol sound like fucking Swans.
The two-minute wonder that is ‘Disappearing’ opens with the line “I’m disappearing again” sung in a ludicrously cheerful manner. This isn’t some nifty deployment of artistic juxtaposition between the lyrical content and their competent but rudimentary musical composition; it either shows a complete lack of conviction or is the result of a serious case of cortex-splintering cognitive dissonance more severe than an axe blow to the head. And then they round it all off by almost breaking out into full-blown Righteous Brothers homage with the closing vocal flourish.
‘Eternal Love’ finds Patton singing that he “never stopped wondering what people think” which is a little hard to swallow seeing as he doesn’t appear to have been curious enough to imagine what people might make of this. One of the (let’s fuckin’) Avett brothers smoothly follows this up with a total checkmate hide and seek manoeuvre: “Hiding humility by never arriving / I wax the Mercedes / I dream about driving.” No-one’s finding that humility anytime soon. This isn’t a kid hiding behind curtains – he’s smuggled any trace of humility he might have had into the next galaxy whilst casually humble bragging about owning a car with a starting price 50% higher than the average annual wage in the UK. Seek all you like, you ain’t finding it.
Little glimmers of Mike Patton’s personality do, accidentally, seep in. His campy performance during ‘Heaven’s Breath’ lands somewhere between Alice Cooper and Nick Cave. It’s a song that they had such confidence in that it was offered up as a lead single, complete with mouth harp, zimmer-paced guitar soloing and some daring electronic wizardry in the final act that vanishes quicker than it appears.
In a 2006 interview with Suicide Girls, Mike Patton claimed that everything that he does is always going to be a “bit of a bastard” and that it’s going to “fall through the cracks”. He went on to say that “good things have a way of finding the cracks and, I believe, that it’s our responsibility, or at least mine, to find that shit.” This collaboration has certainly appeared from a crack, but it’s slithered out of an altogether different kind of greasy orifice.
AVTT/PTTN (you can see his reticence towards putting his full name on the project) hasn’t even had the decency to fully drop out of the rank cleavage that it’s emerged from. It’s broken off, mid-dangle, leaving a half-digested nugget waiting to be smeared across quivering cheeks.
‘The Ox Driver’s Song’ is the only track on the album that the power trio didn’t write. They did, however, bring in the crack team of David Mayfield, Jason Lader, Otto Von Schirach and Dana Nielsen to toss in some genuinely awful drum programming midway through this American standard. It’s a track that’s previously been performed by the likes of Pete Seeger and The Seekers but never before as a half-baked trip-hop take with Patton scatting and grumbling across the lightly distorted instrumentals (to make it sound old, I presume). They might as well have knocked out a dubstep rendition of ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain’ whilst they’re at it.
They kick off the album with ‘Dark Night Of My Soul’ which, surprisingly, asks the quite perspicacious questions: “Is this the dead end of the road? Is this the bottom of a hole? Is this the dark night of my soul?” Anyone that’s made it all the way through to the end and found themselves auto-looped back to the start will surely cry emphatically “yes! Yes! YES!” before quick fisting their speakers and/or their ears. It’s incredible that Mike Patton and the Avett Brothers showed no interest in answering these questions themselves.
Referenced artists
Mike Patton
Hungry Ghosts: Mike Patton & Jean-Claude Vannier’s Corpse Flower
As an elder statesman of rock, Patton has earned the right to drop a steamer. It’s the cynicism with which he has pivoted to this cash cow that worries more than the creative dearth (although it is really funny). It stinks a bit of late career De Niro, who never really recovered from Meet The Parents and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (those who point to The Irishman as evidence of his resurgence need to take another look at themselves (although it is really funny)).
Anthrax’s Scott Ian once said that Patton’s ear is “so finely-tuned – [he is aware of] every single little thing and nothing, nothing, gets by him” So, he must know. It can’t have slipped beneath his radar. If that’s the case, we’re left asking ourselves: is it all an elaborate ruse? Has he gone full Andy Kauffman on us? Is he waiting to see who blinks first?
It’s either that or someone finally turned on that hotel hair dryer and hit record.
