Not unlike most 80s thrash metal bands, Mr. Bungle was formed in an impoverished lumber & fishing town by a trio of curious, volatile teenagers. Trey Spruance, Mike Patton & Trevor Dunn beget the amorphous “band” in 1985 up in Humboldt County, CA, sifting through a variety of members until around 1989 when they settled on a lineup that managed to get signed to Warner Bros. Records. No one really knows how this happened and it remains a complete mystery that even the algorithms of the internet can’t decode.
Some assume the band was destroyed by the Millennium Y2K bug, sucked into the chaoes of the web. The band released three albums and toured extensively until 2000 and then... disappeared. To play in other bands, or to soak in the deepest depths of metal until their return - you decide.
But the pull of returning to full-fledge metal was too strong and the band returned to re-record the 1986 amateurist gem The Raging Wrath of The Easter Bunny.
The band called on Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo ( Anthrax & Slayer, respectively) to ensure the release delivered on the utter most brutal metal sound possible.
On this release Mr. Bungle maintain the rawness and severity of the original demo without too much embellishment, preferring to let the music speak for itself in all of its teenage-angst glory. In addition to what was on the original cassette-only release, three original songs from the same era were realised for the first time. With this new album, the first for the band in 20 years, Mr. Bungle has self-appointed themselves as the final puzzle piece in the pentagonal Big Five. All hail.
The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo is out now via Ipecac Recordings/Liberator Music.
Mr. Bungle photos by Buzz Osborne.
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