General Patton vs. The X-ecutioners
A joint project between Mike Patton and New York turntable crew The X-ecutioners,
General Patton vs. The X-ecutioners is but one of several offerings Patton released in 2005. Perhaps having the most generous output of any musical artist of today, the former Faith No More singer has a knack for creating some of the most insane genre-bending cuts around and leaving people slack-jawed wondering how on earth he keeps up with himself.
I thrive in chaos, he stated in an interview one time, and upon listening to a good bulk of his work you have to agree he does it well.
General Patton vs. The X-ecutioners is a jump-cut hip-hop experiment, a concept album of sorts themed around war. It covers a lot of ground musically, anyone familiar with Patton's work know that his love of all genres keeps leaking in to whatever he does, and this is no exception. There are no real traditional song-structures here, the whole album is a continuous barrage of samples from old war/action movies, hip-hop beats, industrial loops, bluegrass rhythms and harmonious jazz arrangements. This creates a bizarre soundscape that is sleekly cool one minute, amazingly beautiful the next and downright headache inducing after that. Everything is loosely arranged into a number of track titles themed around imagery of war, but few of these tracks can be truly appreciated on their own merits as they all flow into each other (Get Up Punk!, Fire In The Hole, Kamikaze and L.O.L! (Loser on Line!) are the closest the album comes to traditional song structure, most of the tracks on here are soundbites and don't even hit the 2 minute mark). As ringleader Patton is suprisingly in the background for a lot of this, he uses his vocals to embellish arrangements more then anything. He does quite a bit of rapping, and sings on a few tracks (notably Fire in the Hole) but he is foremost displaying his talents writing music here which i think is refreshing. One thing i noticed in particular is the way this album uses dynamics, it can be really quiet in some parts and insanely loud in another, the way the chaos feels so well controlled seems brilliant.
Experimental albums such as this tend to be a hit or miss affair, but
General Patton vs. The X-ecutioners is mostly on the mark. There is a very anachromatic feel to the album, its fusion of modern hip-hop stylings and old-time harmonies make for a very surreal taste that may not be to everyones liking. It's scattered nature can be very repetitive, and it is easy to lose attention during some parts unless you are concentrating on the music. Apart from there is some truly original sounds here that defy description. Well worth a listen.
