Tomahawk "Anonymous" (Ipecac)
By Peter A. Holden
Wednesday. Jun 20, 2:26 PM
Experimental rock supergroup take on ancient Native American hymns.

Although it doesn’t happen a lot in pop music culture, it isn’t rare in the musical world for artists to do whole albums in one style. Often those albums aren’t in the style in which the artist normally works. Even more often, the work is not just in a different style, but also collections of covered material. Unfortunately, the likes of Rod Stewart and Cyndi Lauper have done pop cover albums, so the phenomenon does happen every now and again. But the truly interesting examples of style-based albums are done in the more extremes of the recording world. Tomahawk’s third album Anonymous is just such an album. Instead of doing their third work with solely new material, guitarist Duane Denison delved into his passion for Native American folk music, digging up centuries old hymns for the band to adopt and record. Entirely unattributable to any one artist but entirely authentic, Anonymous is Tomahawk’s homage with their own signature flavor.

What makes this kind of album so interesting is the way in which the unique choice of material is married with the choice of instrumentation and orchestration. To date, not many examples exist of Native American folk music interpreted. This isn’t to say there aren’t recordings of traditional singers and musicians doing traditional songs. There certainly are. But for an artist well outside the vein of that music to record it is somewhat rare. For sure, there weren’t any electric guitars in the music originally. Denison’s signature style and playing season every track with Tomahawk’s flavor. John Stanier’s percussion is just as much a signature. Electronic beats, programming, and keys intersperse all over. And of course, the vocals of Mike Patton always speak loudly and uniquely, no pun intended. The dark, brooding, ominous character of Tomahawk adds grand depth to these songs, but it is done in a tasteful fashion that seems to convey nothing but respect for such a truly inimitable style of music. It is both exciting and incredibly well executed, done with an approach so as not to betray Tomahawk’s rock sensibilities. I can’t say how Native Americans would feel about it, but in my impression it is a very classy interpretation. I think to call it anything other than an interpretation would be incorrect, but I do think those who love the results would consider it a powerful interpretation. And I think that is exactly what Duane, John, and Mike intended.
www.ipecac.com

Peter A. Holden

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