Style and influence
According to Invisible Oranges, Mr. Bungle "cultivated their own complex universe whose parts, embracing both regimen and disorder, inspired awe with increasing perspective and closer examination". Initially a death metal band, and later a thrash metal group, Mr. Bungle changed their style in the '90s to a funk metal sound that showed the influence of ska, disco and avant-garde jazz. In a 2021 interview, Spruance claimed that, "there's never been a time in Mr. Bungle’s existence where it wasn't a metal band. There was always metal in there somewhere, and when we think ‘metal’; metal isn't just riffs and drums playing like a machine; it's a whole psychology. The psychology of metal is there, even in that funk metal era; it's everywhere."
CBS News said that the band's music was a "anarchic mix of metal, ska, experimental jazz, punk and soundtrack music". The Sydney Morning Herald described Mr. Bungle as "experimental rockers". AllMusic described the band as "free-form rock radicals" and said that "Mr. Bungle's sound and approach are a unique mix of the experimental, the abstract, and the absurd". Pioneers of avant-garde metal, the band was also categorized as alternative metal by Kerrang! and The Quietus.
Prior to the release of their first album in 1991, the Los Angeles Times stated that the band "performs oddball music one critic has described as Bugs Bunny-type jazz." Variety referred to the band as "Zappa-esque Bay Area pranksters" in 2000. Allmusic's Greg Prato described Mr. Bungle's music as a "unique mix of the experimental, the abstract, and the absurd", while Patrick Macdonald of The Seattle Times characterized their music as "harsh, grating, unstructured, blasting, squeaky, speedy, slow, eerie and strangely compelling". Distinctive features of the music were the use of numerous different instruments, unusual vocals, and the use of unpredictable song formats along with a number of different musical genres. Greg Prato stated they "may be the most talented rock instrumentalists today, as they skip musical genres effortlessly, while Mike Patton illustrates why many consider him to be the best singer in rock". Not all have agreed, with one reviewer calling the band the "most ridiculously terrible piece of festering offal ever scraped off the floor of a slaughterhouse". Journalist Geoffrey Himes criticized the band by stating "the vocals are so deeply buried in the music that the words are virtually indecipherable" and described the music as "aural montages rather than songs, for short sections erupt and suddenly disappear, replaced by another passage with little connection to what preceded it".
Mr. Bungle frequently incorporated unconventional instruments into their music, including jaw harp, cimbalom, xylophone, glockenspiel, ocarina, bongos, and woodblocks. Journalist John Serba commented that the band's instrumentation "sounded kind of like drunken jazz punctuated with Italian accordions and the occasional Bavarian march, giant power chord, or feedback noise thrown in". Mike Patton's vocals often employed extended techniques such as death metal growls, crooning, rapping, screeching, gurgling, or whispering. The arrangement of their songs was also idiosyncratic, often lacking a structured song format and rotating through different genres ranging from slow melodies to thrash metal. New York Times journalist Jon Pareles described the band's music as "leap[ing] from tempo to tempo, key to key, style to style, all without warning". Similarly, critic Patrick Macdonald commented, "In the middle of hard-to-follow, indecipherable noise, a relatively normal, funky jazz organ solo will suddenly drift in".
The majority of the band's music and lyrics were written by Patton, Dunn, and Spruance, with McKinnon and Heifetz occasionally contributing. Regarding their creative process, McKinnon stated in a 2000 interview that "This band is kind of like a cruel boys club in a way. You bring some ideas and if you're not 100 percent firm about bringing a certain idea to this group, you can watch it get kicked aside and die really quickly."
It has been noted that the band were given an unusual amount of artistic freedom during their tenure with the major label Warner Bros. Records. In a 2016 interview, Trevor Dunn reflected:
I seem to remember that they always left us alone. Patton was a big asset to them financially and in that regard it gave us some power because they had to appease him. That, for one, meant giving him the freedom to work with us as he always had. I don't believe any of our records ever recouped which isn't that big of a deal for a major label who have much larger fish to fry. For them it is just another tax write-off. And I have a sneaking suspicion that they possibly believed we would 'grow up' musically some day and make them some money.
Trey Spruance claimed that Warner Bros. cared so little about the band that they once considered delivering an entire album's worth of static noise to the label, expecting them not to listen to it. "Then we realized – actually it doesn't matter to them; that would seem like a big statement but they would just shrug. They don't care about that shit."
