The Tango Saloon – Transylvania

Another one of the Mr. Bungle members to move to Australia is Danny Heifetz. He now resides in Sydney and is part of the band The Tango Saloon.

(Phantom, 2008)

Transylvania is suspenseful tango/spaghetti western music with dash, no make that a whole heap, of comedy.

First track The Count opens up the album with a thriller/mystery type introduction giving some insight as to what is about to come. What follows includes; a worrying tale of a woman crying out for something in her life (I Want Some Fun), enchanting stories of seemingly distant places and times (Into the Castle, L’Anima Sulle Sue Mani), and action packed escapades (The Chase). We also see a whole lot of exotic tango and humour.

Title track Transylvania gets thing going in real tango fashion with rhythm and heart, at times sounding like something out of Curb Your Enthusiasm; you could certainly see Larry David getting up to something mischievous to this music. Dance of the Dead turns the Curb Your Enthusiasm notch up a level, while Oblivious (There’s Something Down There) and Kiss of Death sound like, in the right context, they could be genuine attempts at some serious tango (if tango is meant to be taken seriously).

Dracula Cha Cha puts everything to bed with an appearance by none other than Mike Patton; and we see the whole outfit seems to be in jest. It is a fun album and would no doubt be better in a live setting (where they are sometimes known as The Mango Balloon).