Sideline bands sometimes shine brighter
than the real thing
Cover photograph of "Disco Volante" by Arthur Hertz/Wometco Enterprises
By SAM HURWITT
It's finally getting out of hand. Either a band has a dozen guest artists on its latest album, or all of its members are off messing around in their own side projects. Some rock stars have gone so far as to declare their old bands dead, although it's hard to take that seriously when every band that ever hit the Top 40 is staging a reunion. Members of Hothouse Flowers and Crowded House constitute the mediocre trio ALT, Concrete Blonde veteran Johnette Napolitano numbers herself among the Pretty & Twisted now, and the Gary Numan-influenced Rentals cloak themselves in anonymity like a new wave Traveling Wilburys. Though the collaborative mood in the air is a heady and positive one, it's getting mighty hard to tell who's who without a scorecard. You may think yourself completely unfamiliar with acts like the Passengers, the Amps, or Mr. Bungle, but it ain't necessarily so.
How much you like the Passengers has everything to do with expectations, and wherever Bono is involved, my expectations are low. Featuring his entire Hibernian modern rock quartet, the band may as well be called U2 + 1, but when that "1" is Brian Eno, the equation yields a product that's much more than the sum of its parts.
First class Passenger Eno, who practically created ambient music, adds his atmospheric engineering genius to his fellow travelers' reliable penchant for producing hummable pop platters. Together, they create a series of soundtracks to films no one's ever heard of, by directors ranging from Jeff Koons to Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders. "Original Soundtracks 1" (Island) is a mesmerizing sea of lush synthesized sound, often low-key but never dull. Bono is at his best here, crooning dulcetly without hamming it up, and ubiquitous McTenor Luciano Pavarotti drops by to take an operatic riff or two in the single "Miss Sarajevo." Wherever these Passengers are going, it's well worth the trip.
The Breeders were a side project at their inception, bringing together Kim Deal of the now-defunct Pixies and Tanya Donelly, then second banana of the Throwing Muses. By the time the Breeders' popular second album came out, Donelly had fled both bands to form her own, Belly. Now that the Breeders have gone the way of all flesh, Deal seems to have found herself in a rut.
With her new band the Amps, Deal has churned out what sounds more or less like a new Breeders album, but not a particularly good one. "Pacer" (4AD/Elektra) consists of one plodding lo-fi tune after another. Deal's hypnotic, slightly dissonant vocals are as distinctive and pleasing as ever, but gone are the off-kilter harmonies that Donelly or her sister Kelly provided in the old band, and gone as well is the runaway collaborative genius that gave the Breeders its infectious energy. Without that, Deal just sounds bored and tired, and that too is contagious.
To call Mr. Bungle a side project is misleading, because it has loaned its members to the better-known and more prolific Faith No More as well as vice versa. Singer Mike Patton wanders back and forth between the two, and for a time guitarist Trey Spruance filled a vacancy in FNM's ever-mutating ranks, but they seem to have reserved their best efforts for Mr. Bungle. The playfulness that shines through the hard rock haze on Faith No More's albums is fully indulged on Mr. Bungle's "Disco Volante" (Warner Bros.).
Less circusy and lewd than the earlier (eponymous) Bungle album, each track of this CD is a symphony in miniature, juxtaposing placid, mellifluous passages with loud and fast sonic assaults. The 12 cartoonish compositions feature hard-driving metal rhythms, elevator synth passages, bizarre sound effects, and Dadaesque lyrics. If your friends complain about the monotonous drone of pop music, hand them "Disco Volante." It'll either rock their world or serve them right.
