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REVIEW FROM THE CLEVELAND SCENE MAGAZINE

BY D.X. FERRIS

 
 

 

Madman Mundt is as sundry as it is severe. Guitarist Scott Stearns played with Integrity precursor Die Hard. Bassist John Benedict drummed with improv-noise artists Weeds From a Perfect Garden. Scott Benedict briefly drummed with Pere Ubu. They know their way around punk and metal, and the band's self-titled debut is a distillation of tried-and-true hard-hard-hard-rock techniques.

Stearns grinds out staccato riffs that are more Prong than the new Prong album. Performance artist and frontman Mark D'Angelo (also a Weeds alumnus) shrieks hard to convince us that he's disturbed. In album-opener "Broke Against Sam," he froths at the mouth like System of a Down's Serj Tankian, taking on the role of a disintegrating junkie covered in sores and drowning in filth, as the band charges through erratic time changes. "Cancelled Comic Book Heroes" is a Bronx-style slam-dance workout. The prog-punk hits its stride in "Madman Mundt," three minutes of dizzying, off-key helter-skelter. The manic rant "Beyond" recalls Suicidal Tendencies' hardcore classic "Institutionalized." Most of it's been done before, but it's all done well.

REVIEW FROM STONERROCKCHICK.COM

BY NIC MUC

This one caught my eye first off because of the killer artwork by Scott Stearns. For those not familiar with his work, he did the artwork for many of the releases on the Shifty Records Roster as well as a good portion of the web design – super evil, heavily detailed sketch art that just fucking jumps right out at you – just like the music on Madman Mundt’s debut.

These guys waste no time, kicking ass and taking names less than 30 seconds into “Broke Again Sam” with an onslaught of high tension, nervous schizo metal that throws back to the days of vintage Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies and the more Jim Martin flavoured Faith No More.

On “Cancelled Comic Book Heroes”, the band works themselves into a frenetic, punky state, with Stearns’ shredding metallic guitar and the unrelenting drum work of Scott Benedict. The music by itself is fairly powerful, but would not even be half as potent without the bizarre Patton meets Cobain “vocals” of Mark D’Angelo, who truly conveys the psychotic nature of this band…this guy is the fucking Exorcist with tourette’s.

Best track honour goes to the 7+ minute “Ticket To Nowhere” which has the band working lightning fast tempo changes in the midst of what could easily be described as a nervous breakdown by Mark D’ Angelo. The band even cools down the pace for a minute and descends into a cool Clutch style jam about 4 minutes in before the thrash zone starts up again and the band come this close to spontaneous combustion.

Lots of really cool movie samples riddled through all the tracks here, adding that extra bit of evil to the mix – fans of “Barton Fink” and John Goodman should get a real kick out of it. I’d like to hear the drum sound beefed up a bit though, as it as it seems to be the only thing that’s keeping me from bouncing off the walls of this nice white padded room they put me in.