Umlaut - Umlaut (2009)

Umlaut are from Melbourne, down under and needless to say, their name is actually Umläut. There's not much to be said about this one except they seem like very interesting and funny crowd. The band members are Clinton Bär McKinnon Julian Langdon, Angus E. Leslie, Shane Lieber, Adam King and Olaf Scott, McKinnon (the multi-instrumentalist) being a leader of the band. Occasionally, a certain Mike Patton is appearing as a guest - not surprising, since Umlaut is closely related to Patton's project - not an offshoot, but a band sharing members. Hence, every Mr. Bungle fan would probably enjoy the music of Umlaut - don't let the easygoing attitude fools you, the guy are doing serious music - dense, powerful, with avant edge.


Folks familiar with the work of Mr Bungle or Secret Chiefs 3 will appreciate this Australian-based project led by Bar McKinnon. Those looking for Bungle parallels will not have to look far as former Faith No More and Mr Bungle front man Mike Patton makes a guest appearance on the excellent pop-quirked 'Atlas Face'. However by no means does the the album stop and start with this track - Umlaut's debut album is a multi-layered affair, it will at least partially satiate the deep need for more Mr Bungle-like material while standing on it's own as a nice launching point for an entirely new band that hopefully begins to churn out more material with regularity. At times it comes off like a band still figuring each other out, but the musicality is very good and overall it's a fun ride.