Fantômas — The Directors Cut

After the really hard to swallow first Fantômas album "Amenaza Al Mundo", the band with Dave Lombardo (Grip Inc, ex-Slayer), Mike Patton (Mr Bungle, ex-Faith No More), Buzz Osborne (Melvins) and Trevor Dunn (Mr Bungle) release "The Directors Cut". A more listenable record according to Patton. He stated in a recent Kerrang interview that "It's kind of a breather for us and the listener."

In Fantômas terms this album is in fact a breather. While Amenaza sounded like a cartoon soundtrack mixed with grindcore, death metal on lots of steroids, "The Directors Cut" is easy-listen music for dedicated Fantômas fans. The tracklisting consists of 15 covers from several movie-soundtracks.

The album starts with the theme from "The Godfather" which is directly recognisable because of the intro. The 'blast' parts as found on the first album are not fully gone here, they fit perfectly with the rest of the songs. After the second track "Der Golem" we get the beautiful "Experiment In Terror". Unlike the original, the Fantômas version has vocals. The song is one of the highlights on the album and maybe their catchiest track ever. "The Omen theme" (Ave Satani) is impressive. A fast and furious metal version with the evil Patton choir. It sounds great and like Mr Bungle, Pattons shows his sense of humour in these kind of renditions. The last four songs on the album are my favourites (I'm not counting track 13 as song song since it's 4 seconds of nothing). "Vendetta", "Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion", "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and "Charade" are just perfect. The Twin Peaks theme even has some smooth trip-hop elements while "Charade" has, next to a brilliant normal vocal performance, Patton's well known 'TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK' throat-sounds.

Not only Patton delivers a great job but with Lombardo's drumskills, Buzz on guitars and Trevor on bass they know how to play their instruments. If you've seen them live I would be suprised if you were not impressed afterwards. "The Directors Cut" is a great Fantômas album. If you liked "Amenaza Al Mundo" or Mr Bungle then you have to get this one too. For people outside the 'Patton-scene', if you want to try something new and refreshing, get "The Directors Cut" and don't forget to try out their first album too, just give it a chance.