Fantomas

Fantomas has committed commercial suicide by releasing a single 75-minute track for its third album. But oh, what a track it is. Writing about this disc is like trying to review a madman's dream -- rewarding, but very strenuous. Fantomas (vocalist Mike Patton, guitarist Buzz Osborne, bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Dave Lombardo) scores what could be a horror film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, or a sci-fi flick helmed by Dario Argento. Translation: The eerily ambient Delirium Cordia teems with sinister portent, punctuated by vocal and instrumental crescendos of marrow-curdling intensity. The shape-shifting soundscape seems to include a cat scratching from inside a bass fiddle, a Gregorian monk having an orgasm in a cathedral during a thunderstorm, a hornet nest shaken in a wind tunnel, and, as they say, much more. Awesome.