FAITH NO MORE — Angel Dust (review)

FAITH NO MORE — Angel Dust album cover Album · 1992 · Alternative Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Warthur
Jim Martin wasn't keen on it, and quit the band after the recording sessions, but more fool him really - this is a monster of an album which proved that Faith No More weren't the one-trick funk metal ponies you might have mistaken them for if just listening to their early material.

Mike Patton had delivered a solid performance on the preceding The Real Thing but hadn't contributed much to the songwriting process, having been hired just as the instrumental tracks had been mostly finished; that all changes here, with the band's musical stylings becoming as eclectic as Patton's other then-current frontman job in Mr. Bungle.

It'd be easy to jump to the assumption that this is actually just a Mr. Bungle album that happens to bear the Faith No More name, but don't make that error - I did, and it hampered my appreciation for it for a while. The fact is that the rest of the Faith No More crew (with the exception of Jim Martin) were just as up for experimentation as Patton was, and in the process here come up with an album which feels different to anything Mr. Bungle did.

The most Bungle-like elements on the album, naturally, come from Patton himself; the music here challenges his vocal abilities in a way that the far more conventional stuff on The Real Thing never did, and he rises to that challenge admirably, and here and there a sense of humour similar to that on the Mr. Bungle debut album crops up. (The narrative of RV, for instance, or the cheerleaders on Be Aggressive spring to mind.)

But at the same time the band weave these funk metal strands throughout the piece, with Bill Gould's meaty bass especially keeping that undercurrent running throughout proceedings; even though at points the album leaves funk metal entirely, it still feels like there's a route back.

On top of that, whereas Mr. Bungle's debut album was dark like a horror show, at points this album is dark like a dingy alleyway where you're in the process of getting mugged; whether it's the foreboding extremity of Jizzlobber or the eloquent but vaguely threatening Midlife Crisis, you feel like this is music to play when doing personal injury to someone or having injury done to you.

It says a lot that this album has all sorts of sneaky jazz and progressive rock influences sneaking in here and there, and yet the final piece is not only complex enough to win over any fan of experimental metal but it's also got this tough, grimy, dark tone which made it feel totally natural rubbing shoulders with the nu-metal acolytes who would crawl out of the woodwork in its wake, even though there isn't anything especially nu-metal in the music beyond a certain hip-hop influence in some aspects of Mike Patton's delivery. It took a while to grow on me, but now I can be proud to say I am totally addicted to Angel Dust.
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