Mike Patton's probably the only guy that would think pilfering guests from the Ninja Tune and Anticon rosters would be a "pop" move. Then again, this is someone who sold millions of people on a synth-laden rap-rock tune back when rap was still in its unlaced Adidas. But that was eons ago, and while the thought of Patton going mersh in a tongue-in-cheek manner sounds appealing, Peeping Tom doesn't deliver. Ideally, this record would be a repository where Patton's musical ADD could be marshaled, recombined, and disseminated in succinct four and five minute chunks. Unfortunately, Peeping Tom, a project that's been six years in the making, is less a display of Patton's remarkable range and eclecticism and more a display of Patton's remarkable lack of aesthetic restraint. In short: the guy, bless his heart, is just trying too hard.
Kicking off the album with a quartet of turgid tunes does this record no favors. A gong crash introduces "Five Seconds", which tries to pull off the well-worn soft/loud rock trick. However, it can't find solid footing to bridge Patton's crooned verses and his shrill, sped-up chorus. Rahzel's amazing lip service is the highlight of the record's first single, "Mojo". The song's purposefully dumb lyrics and smoking and drinking and Britney Spears, in tandem with its bow-legged gait, are not. "Don't Even Trip" finds an interesting groove that approximates locking Rufus' "Tell Me Something Good" in a haunted house-- credit Amon Tobin for that odd pairing-- but Patton kicks his own ass when he starts singing about assholes growing on trees and pulling out the pruning shears. As for "Getaway", Patton's collaboration with Kool Keith, it's seemingly a contest to see which of the two can sound the least interested-- Keith's mundane scatology beats out Patton's stiff singing by a nose.
Only when "Your Neighborhood Spaceman" starts up does this album seem to finally do something. While Patton's indulging an extended space/isolation metaphor, the tune swells and swoons atop swirling synth strings and some well-placed wah-wah guitar. Of course, there's a hip-hop break squeezed in that tries to trip up the momentum, but the tune still works all the same. A similar roadblock nearly stymies the Bebel Gilberto collaboration, when the smooth bossanova groove trades in the brushes for drumsticks. This bait-and-switch tactic works much better with a track like "Celebrity Death Match," where Kid Koala matches Patton's vocal elasticity with equally elastic backing music - one minute, the song's propelled by a fuzzed-out bass and hippo-sized drums; the next, it's Patton's whistling that drives the tune.
For the most part, Peeping Tom succeeds when it keeps things simple. Massive Attack's work on "Kill the DJ" isn't anything spectacular, but its a perfect accompaniment for Patton's rock-star turn. "Sucker" (aka The Song Where Norah Jones Says a Bad Word) is the album's shortest and slinkiest track, and Jones' saucy cameo at the mic is equally short and sweet. And, of course, the album's best track, a remix of the Dub Trio/Patton collaboration "We're Not Alone" (previously found on the Dub Trio's New Heavy), is also the album's biggest pop move. With a little luck and a little payola (and a tolerance for the pinched wheeze Patton uses in the verse), that tune could find itself on heavy rotation at rocks stations all across America. Part of me wishes the rest of the album was this eager to please. For all the great ideas and fantastic moments sprinkled throughout Peeping Tom, it turns out that Mike Patton's idea of pop is as uncompromising as his other musical notions. In this case, what's great in theory doesn't work so well in practice.
