Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom

71%
"The truth kinda hurts, don’t it motherfucker?"

If I gave you a hundred guesses to figure out which guest vocalist sings those words on this CD, you would probably never guess Norah Jones. There probably isn't an easier way to underscore how different this album is to what your expectations may be for it.

But to call Mike Patton different or unpredictable would be an understatement. Best known as the lead singer of alternative metal outfit Faith No More, Patton split into several projects - everything from heading avant-garde bands like Mr. Bungle and Fantomas to singing with metalcore/jazz-fusion band The Dillinger Escape Plan to collaborating with the foremost DJ group in the world, The X-Ecutioners. After getting to more avant-garde extremes musically, his vocals were less sung words but more screams, growls, and sound effects.

Perhaps the last thing anyone expected Mike Patton to do then, is to tone down his experimental nature and announce that he was making a pop album. Or perhaps we should have all expected it, considering Patton has a track record of doing the unexpected.

Either way, Peeping Tom is Patton's new project where he collaborates with a guest artist for every song. According to him, it's his attempt at making a pop record, or what he would put on the radio if he controlled it, but it's by no means Patton singing along to your average pop-rock music - for the most part, actually, it has a strong trip-hop bent. Patton is almost unmatched in terms of pure vocal talent, and here he cuts down on the weird vocal stylings for more straight-up singing.

Despite advertised as a bit of a pop album, "Peeping Tom" is hardly accessible. As an example, I could barely bring myself to really listen to the trip-hop/D'n'B of "Don't Even Trip" (featuring Amon Tobin).

The second song, "Mojo" opens with the world's foremost beat-boxer, Rahzel, doing a jungle-type beat. The beat, no doubt constructed by the other collaborator, Dan "The Automator", keeps on with the eeire electronics with a little beatboxing from Rahzel mixed in.

Old-school innovator turned indie rap hero Kool Keith guests on "Get Away", although it seems the other way around: Keith does all the verses while Patton handles the hook. Although being reduced to hook singer on your own album might not be such a good thing, I actually did enjoy that song a bit.

The next song, "Your Neighborhood Spaceman" (his second collaboration with Odd Nosdam) has keys eerily reminiscent of Aerosmith's seminal power ballad "Dream On". Patton does deviate from singing a little on this song, doing a quasi-rap. It actually works quite well, and the song is one of the album's high points. He does deviate at points from his singing throughout the album, from a vocal freakout on the opener "Five Seconds" to a whisper on "Mojo".

His collaboration with Massive Attack, "Kill the DJ" isn't as good as it could have been, given the amount of talent involved. Going from eerie electronica/hip-hop/metal type sounds, I was suprised to hear "Caipirinha". It features Bebel Gilberto (João Gilberto's daughter) to a bossa-nova-tinged backing. Semi-suprisingly, the song shifts to chunky synths on the chorus before returning to the acoustic guitar-driven verses.

"How U Feelin'?" features Doseone, and it may be good as far as Anticon goes, but then again, Anticon sucks. Then there's the bizarre Norah Jones duet "Sucker", which is as weird as the rest of the album. Norah's breathy delivery of the "motherfucker" line comes off as awkward, but then again, it might kill the point if it wasn't. The album closes with another eeire number: the "We're Not Alone" remix featuring the Dub Trio. Patton sings in a falsetto for a bit, then briefly two hard rock guitar chords and two crashes are hit and he's in a full-on scream. Then he goes back to the falsetto and the music relaxes again. Then the chorus hits hard again. Mike Patton is about the only guy who can pull it off as well as he does here, and the song is about as close as pop/rock this album comes to.

Although there were claims that Mike Patton had made a pop record, those claims are pretty much untrue. Although Mike reigns in a bit (this isn't the "metal dadaism" of Fantomas nor the chaos of the Dillinger Escape Plan), it'd be a real stretch to call "Peeping Tom" "accesible". Patton flirts with electronica and hip-hop about as much each, resulting in a trip-hop vibe. The real star here though, is Mike's vocals: few can pull off what he does so effectively throughout the album. "Peeping Tom" is Patton's most accessible project since Faith No More, so both Patton fans and Faith No More fans will eat it up. That being said, however, it doesn't make enough of a grab to a more accessible sound to appeal to a mainstream audience to garner too many new fans. Of course, that to many is commendable so it hardly seems like fair criticism. On the other hand, I didn't find enough compelling music to justify that. In other words, Mike's attempt at a pop record seems half-hearted, which only ends up weakening his own experimental nature and doesn't add enough in the way of accessibility to make up for it.

- Luis