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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Weirdly compulsive, strangely essential, June 1, 2004
It's impossible for me to listen to this music without simply shaking my head in utter amazement.To even be able to imagine, let alone effectively conjure, such a dementedly beautiful soundscape is beyond comprehension. Obviously, it builds on past forays into--what? I don't know, not being entirely familiar with the previous efforts of this remarkable construct emanating from the mind of Mike Patton. But there are snippets of metal, jazz, electronica, horror movie soundtrack--all welded together in a unique sonic signature: Dark, noxious, strangely beautiful, mesmeric, and ghostly. I think I catch the vibe of surgery as somehow alchemic, violative, invasive, yet essentially humane. As is this music. Dangerous, vital, indespensible, oddly compelling.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Who listens to this kinda music?, January 30, 2004
What I want to know is who listens to this kind of music, and when? Delirium Cordia definitively isn't an album you put on for a party, or to rock out to in your car like Mike Patton's other band Tomahawk. Really, it isn't something to play at all in the presence of others, no matter how impolite the company.This album, just 1 track, 74 minutes long, is isolated, deranged, and an absolute masterpiece of complex sound and mood. Fantomas' last album, The Director's Cut, took the band into film score by doing short covers of famous pieces like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The God Father," but this one delves fully into an original full length composition that really might best be suitable for something directed by Cronenberg or Aronovsky. And that's the best way to listen to it, eyes closed, alone, imagining your own movie to accompany this piece of music-and the acid-blasted landscapes of auditory imagery aroused belong in a genre busting horror film; or perhaps this is just the music that the pathologist hums in his head while performing an autopsy. Delirium Cordia reminds me of the paintings of Henry Darger, with its haunting, disturbed beauty, moments of innocence subverted, and violent storms constantly threatening to erupt. And they do erupt, but not with the level of nearly un-listenable cacophony found in other works by Mike Patton, such as Adult Themes for Voice. Delirium Cordia is the perfect mood-setter to listen to while writing fiction and poetry (if what you write leans towards the misanthropic, the violent, the introspective.) And it leaves me more convinced than ever that Mike Patton at some point will be approached by an intelligent director to score a daring and unconventional film (or videogame.) Finally, the art. Nothing else by Fantomas (or any other Patton project since the first Mr. Bungle album) has had such lush production values in the cover art. This is the best way to stop music piracy--by making the complete work a coherent piece of art, as these richly produced color photos and quotations mesh perfectly with the music. To have only the music hidden away on your hard drive would be to diminish the overall experience of enjoying Delirium Cordia. The prickle of gooseflesh I felt slipping off the black protective cardboard sleeve for the first time and seeing the chilling image on the cover (let it be a secret) greatly heightened my apprehension about what I was going to hear as I put the disk into the player. A sterile download bar is no replacement. This disk is the best thing to show up in my mailbox in months. If you've liked the Melvins, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, or if you know none of those bands but like dark film scores and experimental music, stop reading and BUY THIS ALBUM NOW.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surgical Soundtrack, February 23, 2004
This is one of the best albums to come out in a long time. I will not bother comparing it to any other album, because it stands alone as a testament to what a truly great album can be. When I popped this one into the cd player in my car as I drove home from the record store, my mind was immediately flooded with images of old hospitals, grimy sugical instruments and a spiritual unease. I was hooked, and I intend that pun. On the back of the cd case, there is a quote: "Like the surgeon, the composer slashes open the body of his fellow man, removes his eyes, empties his abdomen of organs, hangs him up on a hook, holding up to the light all of the body's palpitating treasures, sending a burst of light into its' innermost depths. - Richard Selzer, MD." This quote sums up the album completely, as there is an overwhelming dark theme composed of vocalizations, sound effects, and instrumentation interspersed with glorious choral vignettes, suggesting that the pain and suffering of the patient is temporarily alleviated by medicine, unconciousness, or a spiritual intervention. There is an almost constant feeling of impending doom, and then sometimes, the doom reveals itself with a cacophonic dirge, as though the gates of Hell had just opened and a legion of infernal creatures were coming just to torment one person lying under sedation on an operating table. Who knows what horrors lurk in the depths of an anaethestic-induced nightmare? I think Mike Patton has opened an operating room door and the sign reads "Delirium Cordia".
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is Fantômas' 3rd studio release. Browse Fantômas' Discography 
