Tomahawk just put out their latest album, Anonymous. Admittedly, I was a little apprehensive when I first heard this album. It does not sound like what you’d come to expect from Mike and the gang. Instead of mind blowing, crazy tracks full of screeching vocals, Anonymous is like a new age chant album for rock fans.

The story behind Anonymous is that while Duane Denison was playing guitar for Hank III they played a lot of indian reservations and this experience sparked his interest in the songs of America’s indigenous people. Having the urge to breath new life into native songs—which usually gets translated into folk/blues or new age hippie crap—Tomahawk set out to reinturpret the music with modern/rock instrumentation and in most cases translated the original lyrics into english. The product of this fussion of new and old is golden. Some songs like Mescal Rites come off with drum laden-heavy moshable beats while Cradle Song is just plain erie with Mike Patton’s trademark sleez-o thick whispering vocals. Overall, Anonymous changes it up quite often, varying the atmosphere of the tracks from serious, dark and forboading to light and plucky. One of my favorite track is Red Fox, which ironicly is one that had been completely changed from the original, but is the most dynamic in terms of both vocals and beat.

All in all I am thuroughly enjoying Tomahawk’s vision of traditional Native American music. They managed to strip away the hokeyness that is so much “indigenous” or world music while showing the utmost respect for the cultures that created these songs.