SilentScream213 Most people seem to either love or hate Mike Patton, and while I don’t hate the man, I certainly don’t love his style. I don’t think he really changed Faith No More as a band or even stylistically because they were never a serious group, but Mike tends to just make whatever he touches… goofy. He’s got a good voice when he sings normally, but he’s also prone to making weird voices almost like he’s doing character impressions or something.

Anyway, the album is pretty standard fair from what anyone’s come to expect from Patton and Faith No More. An eclectic collection of funky Alt. Metal that doesn’t take itself seriously and occasionally has a good hook or two. None of the music here was memorable to me except “Take This Bottle” which is a Country-tinged track and seemingly a rather serious one at that, having themes of alcohol induced abuse and relationship breakdown complimenting the beautiful piano and simple melancholic chords. The title track and penultimate “The Last to Know” similarly had a more serious tone to them and succeeded in capturing my attention with commanding hooks and strong progression.

Other than that, nothing really grabbed me. The tracks here aren’t bad (save for “Ugly in the Morning”) but they don’t bring much to the table other than the band’s trademark quirkiness. And quirkiness alone isn’t winning any points.

Warthur With Jim Martin out, having had enough of the experimental direction the band had taken, Faith No More turned to Mike Patton's Mr Bungle collaborator Trey Spruance to take on guitar duties for the recording of this album. If you're excitedly hoping for the "Mr Bungle meets Faith No More" fusion you might expect from such a turn of events, you're going to be left disappointed; with Patton and Spruance issuing both new Mr Bungle releases and solo efforts at this time (with Spruance in particular gearing up the Secret Chiefs 3 project), much of their more extreme and idiosyncratic moments were saved for those.

What you get here instead is a far more relaxed album than the foreboding cover art would lead you to expect - it's Faith No More kicking back and dabbling in bossa nova, lounge and disco music with bits of half-baked metal stuck in because they seem to have feel obliged to include it. There's lots of interesting experiments on here, but they don't seem to point to a cohesive whole or a convincing direction for the band's future. Sure, Angel Dust was pretty freaky in its own way, but it had that meaty funky bass going to give some sort of connection to where the band had been and there seemed to be a particular aesthetic shape they wanted, but that's not the case here. It's undeniably interesting, but this is where I get off the Faith No More train.

Stooge “It’s years ahead of it’s time” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot when describing music. While King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime probably didn’t exactly sound futuristic upon its release in 1995, it has aged extremely well. If somebody told me that this album came out a few years ago, I’d believe it.

Most notable to anyone familiar with the band is the absence of founding guitarist Jim Martin. Patton’s Mr. Bungle bandmate, Trey Spruance, acts as session guitarist on the album. While there are some slight hints of the Martin-era sound (see “What A Day”), Patton, Bottum, Gould, and Bordin had definitely taken the band in a different direction.

As a fairly long album with regards to the quantity of tracks (14 total), the listener is treated to a wide variety of songs much like Angel Dust provided a few years earlier. You have some strong, uncompromising hard rockers (“Get Out”, “Digging The Grave”), some more off-the-wall songs ("The Gentle Art of Making Enemies", “Cuckoo For Caca”), and add some lighter songs to the mix (“Take This Bottle”, “Just A Man”).

Two of the tracks that interest me the most on this album, “Ricochet” and “Evidence”, aren’t the most original choices since both tracks were released as singles. “Ricochet” is a simple but spectacular hard rock song that is catchy without being overly-demanding of your attention. “Evidence” has the band taking on a light jazz/funk sound and features some of Patton’s best vocals on the album. Much like “Caralho Voador”, which has something of a bossa nova vibe, classifying “Evidence” as a metal song would be a stretch in any context. Faith No More is one of those bands that can pull such genre switching mid-album in a manner that it doesn’t sound forced or out of place. Add to those two tracks the warm and powerful “The Last To Know” to make up my personal favorites off King For A Day.

As arguably one of the band’s most underrated albums, I highly recommend checking out King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime, an album that flows nicely from beginning to end!

Pekka With the departure of the stubborn metal head Jim Martin and the acquisition of Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance for these sessions Faith No More traded most of their down-picked metal riffage for a more rocking approach, even flirting with disco and lounge music, gospel choirs and whatnot. The result is a very eclectic blend of different styles, but judging by this album the band is comfortable in any shoes possible.

Around the making of this album Mike Patton also released Disco Volante as part of Mr. Bungle and the solo album Adult Themes for Voice, and as he got most of his avant garde ambitions poured onto those albums, his vocals on this one are surprisingly conventional. He does have the occasional freak moment like the vomit spree closing Ugly in the Morning, but most of the time he sticks to singing in a more normal manner, but with various styles as the music changes from the balladic side of Take This Bottle through the disco and bossa nova of Star A.D. and Caralho Voador to the heavy rock and punky metal filling much of the 14 tracks. Some of my favourites include the opener Get Out, from which I particularly enjoy Billy Gould's bass sound in the chorus, the brilliantly atmospheric but a tad overlong Evidence, the aforementioned wildly rocking Ugly in the Morning and somewhat similar The Gentle art of Making Enemies, the epic feeling title track and the gorgeous closing number Just a Man, which makes great use of a gospel choir and was the first song to do that in a manner of which I approve.

When considering the rating for this album I find myself battling with the descriptions behind each number of stars. Since it's considerably less metal than their previous releases I think of this one as an essential rock album with occasional metal moments. Very highly recommended.