FAITH NO MORE – ANGEL
DUST (SLASH)
This was huge fucking
record which over the years has only maintained its intensity, even appreciated
in stature. Faith No More were already
good when it arrived but now they were great.
Before this album
Faith No More had been lumped into the funk rap metal movement most represented
by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. As Mike
Patton rapped his way through “Epic” in bright colours it was all too pleasing
and amusing, satisfying on a surface level that rendered the band somewhat
accessible and disposable.
In many ways Angel
Dust represents something of a change of the guard within the band. The metallic leanings of their previous three
albums (seemingly favoured by Jim Martin) now made way for a denser, more
adventurous sonic assault which appeared more Patton’s style. This is just an incredible album where
everything falls into place, where every experiment works and each deviation
into new territory pays off. At a time
when grunge and industrial rock was storming the pages of Kerrang! the band
expertly pounded such elements into their armoury while maintaining a keen
balance of horror and humour in addition to holding onto genre departure
altogether.
Now here comes the
rub. At the time I was good friends with
the biggest Faith No More. As I
staggered through the final year of school I suddenly found myself hanging out
with a guy called Glenn
who adopted Faith No More as his chosen band and promptly proceeded to shove
them down our throats both tainting and over killing the act not only for me
but also Metal
Dan who was hanging out with us at the time. I owned the album on cassette but he had it
on CD which meant he could safely blast it to a volume and frequency my stereo
would not allow. His copy of the album
had “Easy”
on it while mine didn’t. Suddenly my
appreciation of the band was inferior in everyway. So be it.
And with that for years I steered clear of the band and this album long
after my friend had exited my life.
I cannot recall the
point I picked the band back up. I can
recall the day I finally bought the album on CD and that was on drunken
Saturday night in Leicester
Square after an AFC Wimbledon
game when my friend Stevo
and I snapped up various discs from the HMV Trocadero sale.
Now given a second
life and listened to with a mature set of ears a new degree of appreciation
seeped into my being. Equally it was
around this time while I was still doing Gringo Records that Phill the bass
player from Reynolds and
the guy recording all our acts at the time always expressed his appreciation
and enjoyment of the band. And Phill was
a musically schooled person. By this
stage the band was no longer cool and releasing albums no one was really
getting excited about but Angel Dust remained regarded a monster.
This is very much an
album about juxtaposition. On the front
cover is a beautiful swan while on the back is a slaughtered cow. Indeed the title can refer to both magic and
the height of aggressive narcotic.
“Do you often sing and
whistle just for fun?”
On that theme it opens
with the pulsing/thumping “Land Of Sunshine
With that the record
moves onto “Caffeine” which was apparently written by Patton during a sleep
depravation experiment. And the manner
with which he barks his way through proceedings makes this quite the plausible
prospect. Opening with a sample of
animal sounds (barking/howling) taken from the movie A Rose For Emily it is a
tightly wound track featuring a fit from its singer. A breather finally arrives when the band
takes it down and Gould’s bass suddenly rumbles as creepy effects play out and
Patton stands with accusation “but its so easy for you, there’s always one
thing”. This is Hitchcock and Hermann for the grunge era. “Relax its just a phase, you’ll grow out of
it”. Who is this psycho we are listening
to?
The first single on
the album is “Midlife
Crisis” with features some fine vocal gymnastics and staunch mood changes
as the song refers to what it says on the tin apparently addressing Madonna and
the overexposure she commanded back in the early nineties when she was teaching
my generation about dirty kinky sex. It
contains the rousing line “I’m a perfectionist, my perfection is sham”.
With “RV” the band
does something wonderful: it accidentally introduces its audience to Tom Waits.
From one perspective it is easily the best song of the album swaying in
a first person narrative that is awesome representing awful. Built around Bottum’s piano piece it’s a
damaged celebration of slobbery (“my world, my TV, my food”) which eventually
builds in hideous remorse in the chorus with the drunken gesture of “I hate
you, talking to myself, everybody’s staring at me, I’m only breeding”. As the track progresses the voices slowly
becomes more agitated transferring disgust from its own reflection to the world
before it. Before long it becomes a cry
for help finally ending in resignation and resolution with the line “I’ll just
tell then what my daddy told me, you ain’t never gonna amount to nothing”.
“Smaller And Smaller”
is another sailing moment. Originally
inhabiting the working title of “Arabic” it audibly builds in front of the
listeners ears playing out like the Faith No More version of “Kashmir” interrupted by
aboriginal chant samples and more Hitchcock screams until it eventually comes
into port.
Lightening the mood
the eventual fourth single lifted from the album “Everything’s Ruined” is an
upbeat bounce perhaps the song here closest to previous work and The
Real Thing. With its easily
memorised lines, crashing riff and huge chorus hook it’s a wonderful
celebration of disaster. Less optimistic
is “Malpractice” which follows opening with drums that sound like rockets and
playing thought sounds like all out warfare and carnage. Displaying menace at its most massive
“Malpractice” is relentless as Patton screams his way through in death metal
fashion until a Kronos Quartet
sample drops it prior to being promptly pummelled and dismissed by the tank
like approach of FNM. Its an act
assuming casualty.
“Write it a hundred
times.”
The second side begins
with “Kindergarten” which feels almost calming in comparison to the manner in
which the first side ended. It is indeed
a song that addresses maturity and childish things. Then on that note we get “Be
Aggressive” a song about oral sex with a cheerleader chorus spelling out
the song title in Sesame Street
And on the subject of
singles “A
Small Victory” arrives as the most graceful and lush exhibit the band is
ever likely to offer. As Bottum fleshes
out and carpets the sound Martin facilitates a chug which Patton
characteristically pounces on proceedings surfing an oriental sounding base
singing about the appreciation of occasional winning while accepting that
losing bothers when it is part of the agenda (“it shouldn’t bother me, but it
does”).
“They sum it all up in
a sentence.”
The arrival of “Crack
Hitler” then “Jizzlobber” sees the album ending in dense fashion akin to the
final hammer blow that wins a war. The
positioning of two such solid songs late in the order reminds of how strong the
b-side of Nevermind
is. “Crack Hitler” is a weird waltz
detailing the delusion of second rate Scarface referring to himself as “Crack
Hitler” while “Jizzlober” is just one hell of a rally with screams of “smiles! bruises!”
ahead of all going incoherent and hostile.
With that album ends
with perfection and the sumptuous outro of “Midnight
Cowboy” which plays out like closing credits. This was a bold song to attempt, not least by
what was previously considered a funk rap metal act. And with Bottum steering the ship dare I say
they better the original. Seldom has an
album ended better.
And on that note along
comes “Easy”
on the re-release version of the album upsetting the apple cart. The song stands out like a sore thumb. As far as what comes before it, the track
makes little sense but being a classy rendition of an old favourite it
affectively serves as a unit shifting add-on.
There is no debating it being a very good version of a very solid song
only the context in which it is positioned/offered here. Oh well, whatever nevermind.
Angel Dust is as good
as modern rock music gets, it is perfect.
It’s a positive experiment into expanse.
This should have been the future for guitar.
Thesaurus moment:
brobdingnagian.
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