Artist: "Fantomas"
Album: "The Director's Cut"
Genre: Miscellaneous
Label: Ipecac Recordings

Reviewer: -RoG-
Posted: 9/29/2008

Review: If you've been interested in Mike Patton's post-Bungle and post-Faith No More work, but don't know where to start, please focus your eyes and ears on this maniacal masterpiece. The Director's Cut is one of Patton's finest works, and easily the best album by Fantomas (or "Fantômas"). The album consists of 15 tracks (16 if you count the non-existent track 13) which cover the theme songs from some of finest movies your money can buy. The album has a primary focus on cult and horror theme songs, but these are no mere average cover songs. We are talking about the vocal work of Mike Patten after all...

Patton has truly taken every one of these songs and made them his own (along with the help of members of The Melvins, Mr. Bungle and Slayer). Seamlessly drifting from cool, lounge style music to speed metal and all out experimental noise, you'll often find yourself wishing that these versions of the songs were in the movies instead of the original tunes. There are very few cover albums (if any) that boast such a thing.

Stand out tracks for me include: "Rosemary's Baby", which starts off sounding like a lullaby and concludes like a nightmare ("What have they done to his eyes!?"). "Experiment In Terror", is as cool and collected as can be, but still delves into muffled metal madness. "The Godfather" theme starts off just like the original, and then hits you like a jackhammer with unrelenting speed and Patton's hilarious bizarro vocal outbursts. "The Omen (Ave Satani)" is hysterically nutting as it shifts from the quiet, creeping chants to the shrill screeches of "Sanguis bibimus, corpus edimus, tolle corpus Satani!" And the album concludes with "Charade", which is easily one of my favorites as it transitions from Patton singing like a high-pitched child to him scat singing like a complete lunatic. In all honesty, there's just too much good material on this album and it's all worth mentioning.

I should also note that "What A Feeling" (from the movie Flashdance) was supposed to appear on this album, but they were forced to remove it due to legal complications. Perhaps that's why track 13 is missing. It's unfortunate too... I really would've loved to hear how Patton and company would interpret that old uplifting tune. Nevertheless, it's an absolutely incredible album unlike anything else you've ever heard, and fans of cult and horror film themes alike (along with a healthy dosage of black humor) owe it to themselves to own it. I'm sure you'll have almost as much fun listening to it as Patton and his pals had making it.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)