Fantômas - Spider Baby

There’s so much social stigma around being a gentle amount of strange from time to time. Now, we here at Rock Song of the Week don’t advocate putting a pair of underpants on your head and two pencils up your nose, but there are plenty of ways to get your weird on without needing a well-placed “wibble”. Case in point; Fantômas.

Named for the anti-hero of crime novels at the turn of the century, Fantômas ain’t your dad’s supergroup. Unless your dad is much cooler than my dad, anyway. Fronted by the instantly recognisable pipes of Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton, the line-up is rounded out with an absolutely stellar cast and crew - Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins on guitar, previous Mike Patton bandmate in Mr. Bungle Trevor Dunn on bass and Dave Lombardo of Slayer on drums. Look at that line-up and tell me you have any idea what that’s going to sound like other than “heavy”, followed by a few grunting noises.

But here’s the thing – that heaviness is just one slice of a crazy cake with all sorts of mad ingredients. Especially album Director’s Cut, which is a joyful amount of bizarre, layering heavy metal and avant-garde jazz over the top of whole bunch of recognisable (and film-nerd levels of obscure) film and tv themes. Try recommending this to your peers, then completely fail to explain what the whole thing is about by the time you get past just the theme. The best part, though, is that every song is almost totally different; if you don’t like one, then there’s bound to be something there that’s more your speed. We highly recommend checking out the full album sometime but, in the meanwhile, Spider Baby is your taster and your exceedingly eccentric Rock Song of the Week pick. Keep it weird, folks and, if you can’t, let this track do it for you.