Angel Dust

by

Faith No More

Edit

Let's go back to the time that this album was recorded. You are a band that has been around, even to the point of being on your 2nd lead singer in Mike Patton. Your last album was a surprise breakthrough mainstream hit thanks to the surreal song, "Epic", which broke into the Pop Top 10 and the video was constantly on MTV. Your band seems destined to break out and become a major commercial star. So what do you do? You release an album in "Angel Dust" that was so commercial unfriendly that you kill any chances of being pop successes. And what is wrong with that you ask? Nothing - it is just a gutsy move to say the least by this band that has influenced all kinds of "nu-metal" bands these days (none are as good as FNM).

Anyone familiar with Patton's other band, Mr. Bungle, will feel that "Angel Dust" is an album that would seem more appropriate for Mr. Bungle than Faith No More, but it showed the variety of styles that this band could play. Sadly, this would be the last album for eccentric guitarist, Jim Martin, with the band, but he is in fine form along with Mike Bordin, Patton, and the others. All of the tracks are great, but my favorites include "Mid-Life Crisis" which might be the only real close commercial track on the album, "Crack Hitler", "Be Aggressive", which has cheerleaders and is an ode to oral sex, and "RV" which is a hilarious song, partly because Patton sings it in a white trash type of voice. His range on this album is incredible. The album ends with a version (instrumental) of "Midnight Cowboy", and considering that you hear all kinds of stuff on this album like organs, choirs, cheerleaders, etc, it seems appropriate.

You will probably not like this album on the first listen, unless you are a weirdo or a Mr. Bungle fan, but give it a chance as it will continue to grow on you the more times you listen. One of the most underrated albums of all-time, in addition to being one of the most daring. Faith No More, essentially, was never the same band after this album. And little wonder - as not only did the album destroy any commercial hopes they had (which was probably zero) but more than that, it was such a brilliant album, that it was impossible to top it.

FNM were an excellent art metal band and gave a great wad of interesting, sometimes intriguing art to the world. Alas they also generally failed to truly communicate with their prospective audience, wearing the listener out with many varied twists and turns. Which, if your going to wear out an audience is the way to do it!

So on the up side here we have a band full of confidence and really going for it, exploring their particular vision of artistically challenging (but never prog) musings to a market demographic that struggled to keep up. On this album the boys start to delve further into the sort of musical landscape that would be further defined on later albums, a whole range of songs here that court mellow, not quite lounge, stylings presumably following Pattons obvious love of gentle crooning as well as a few tongue in cheek silly boys stuff like Jizzlobber and more arty tunes such as Everythings Ruined and the somewhat strange but highly effective Be Aggressive, a song where your never sure just how much drugs the band were on during it's writing and recording sessions!

The downside is the lack of connectivity in some of the more labyrinth like constructs and you'd have to be a real zealot to claim to go along with every turn and twist tried out on this disc.

Ultimately this album showed the band were willing to be quite courageous and go further out on a limb and risk their fan base. They needn't have worried as many of the fans they attracted with their earlier efforts were not `fair weather friends' but indeed the kind of people who kept on picking up their albums and going to their tours, allowing the band a sense of artistic freedom that I'm sure must have made them the envy of many others on the circuit.

Note that in some territories there were versions of this album released with an ep of four live bonus tracks - Easy, Be Aggressive, Kindergarten, Mark Bowen. Not life changing but if your lucky enough to track this version down it adds to the value and who knows, may actually help you decide if you want to buy this bands Live at Brixton Academy release.