21. Mr. Bungle - 'The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny Demo'

Mr. Bungle will forever be known as Mike Patton’s other band. It was from there that he was plucked in 1988 to front the mighty Faith No More and it was Mr. Bungle that he used to channel his frustrations of the commercialism of his day job. The more successful and mainstream that Faith No More became, the more experimental and avant-garde went Mr. Bungle. When Faith No More dissolved in acrimony in 1998, Mr. Bungle limped on for a couple more years, but it was obvious that without the frustrations of being a Metal megastar Mike Patton no longer needed his creative outlet.

Fast forward twenty years (and nine years after the majestic return of Faith No More), Mr. Bungle has also been reanimated, but as a damn good Thrash Metal band. Never one to bow to convention, Mike Patton has decided to ignore all their nineties experimental alt-metal output and instead concentrate on an unreleased demo that they made back in 1986. “The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo” is a re-recording of all the tracks that appeared on that demo (as well as couple of covers and three previously unrecorded tracks).

Yes, I know that under my own strict rules this should be ineligible, but I have included it in the list for three reasons:

a)    Nobody ever heard the original demo

b)    In order to make an authentic sounding eighties Thrash Metal album hey have added thrash royalty to their ranks: namely former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo and Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian.

c)    It’s bloody brilliant

This is probably one of the finest examples of Thrash I have heard in a long time. It is fast, ferocious and utterly unrepentant. Being a Mike Patton project, the tongue is firmly in the cheek. This is five middle aged men having the time of their bloody lives. They are re-recording their hastily made basement tapes with thirty-four years’ worth of experience and expertise and the help of two men that inspired the recording in the first place. Just, just, just wonderful.