The coolest album of the 90’s! The Birth of nu-metal? A masterpiece. A boring piece of shit. I had already read a lot about Angel Dust without ever hearing it. I had, however, heard their song Epic on some weird random top 25 list that Mtv always shows, that by the way usually show mostly Nirvana, Metallica and the usual suspects on every list that again makes absolutely no sense. I even remembered that I saw a top 25 British artists list with Pearl Jam in the top 5. But never mind, back to Epic; I loathed it, thought it was a horrible song and didn’t get why people would like such junk. The vocals where specifically annoying to be honest. I then later found out that online the song was a really famous song and people even thought of it as one of the best songs ever, and that Mike Patton was apparently seen as a enormously gifted singer. I then listened to The Real Thing which I found really annoying and thus my hatred for Faith No More was born. I was about 16 years old then, Metallica was my favourite band and I listened to about 0,5% of the music I listen to now. I of course hated things with a passion back then and was a lot less open to music than I am now.
3-4 Years went by and my love for music became bigger and bigger, discovering more artists, albums, songs, genres and what else, every day. I wrote a lot of reviews, mostly poorly written but increasingly better because my English would improve step by step and my writing skills would smoothly follow. Now, I wouldn’t say that I am now a great writer by any means. No, I still see myself a pretty much sub par compared to a lot of other reviewers I see on the internet, but I’m not that bad, I hope. Well my review days where already somewhat gone by and I was getting lazy in my writings when I agreed with myself that I wanted to write a review every week for the reasons that 1: My writing in English would improve, 2: I would learn to absorb and love those reviewed albums even more than before and finally 3, I liked writing stuff. So I joined the “Go review that album game” on Rate Your Music again and began reviewing albums again (I already used to review album before) but by my 4th assignment I got stuck for over 3 months.
That assignment as you’ve by now seen was Faith No More’s most critically acclaimed album, their said masterpiece Angel Dust. I had downloaded the album some time ago and never really gave it a full spin, but on my first listen I found it surprisingly good, especially of course since my grown hatred for the band. In those 4 years I never really found the time or (perhaps I’m more honest by saying the latter) I never felt like checking the band out again. On this first spin I couldn’t really tell why I would hate this band and I liked it right away. Oh on a side-note I had already discovered multiple Patton projects and Mr Bungle’s California stood and still stands as one of the greatest album I have ever heard. The vocals were nothing like the vocals I remembered on Epic and the music was weird, edgy and interesting. However, I couldn’t get into it at all. I never felt like listening to the album. So the album became sort of a burden for me. I needed to review it because I wanted to, I never wanted to listen to it, I knew it was good so I couldn’t dismiss it as a lets say 3/5 album and never listen to it again, but I would never know the album good enough to write a decent review about. Well, it clicked, it finally clicked damn it. It is indeed a fantastic record and I could finally give it a proper review which I am now about to do after these 700 words of useless rambling.
So, Angel Dust is indeed a fantastic record. It starts of with the somewhat weird Land of Sunshine, where Patton sometimes just goes into some quirky spoken word sections over a funky bass line that could fit perfectly in a Red hot chilli peppers song. Later on there are actually all kinds of different songs, some of them are very metal and quite heavy while others are just good catchy pop songs. Yes, the diversity and flow of this album is quite remarkable with music going all over the place but still sounding perfectly on the record without any songs that are completely placed out of the album context. Most importantly, about every song here is very well written and catchy. Sure it’s no Mr Bungle album and so it’s not completely weird with tons of genre hopping in one song, but you can say it might be in Mr Bungle-lite in the genre hopping department. I mean, you can definitely see it’s at least genre bending. There are the quirky songs like the former mentioned Land of Sunshine and other songs like RV and Be Aggressive, the nu-metal songs like Caffeine and Midlife Crisis which by the way is a very well written good song, the very heavy metal songs like Smaller and Smaller and Malpratice and there are some songs which I wouldn’t know how to categorize. Anyway, it’s a consistent and mostly fun record with a lot of excellent songs on it and I’m sure I will play it a lot from now on. Other Faith No More records (including the Real Thing) bring it on!
By: Jochem
Deluxe double vinyl LP pressing includes the original release accompanied by a second LP filled with rarities related to the album. After extensive touring for their 1989 album The Real Thing, the band returned in 1992 with Angel Dust. It climbed to #10 on the U.S. album charts and would later be recognized as one of the most influential releases of the era. The album swings between extremes-aggressive and disturbing, but also beautiful and soothing-showing off every facet of the band's quirky eloquence on such diverse tracks as "Midlife Crisis," "Jizzlobber," "R.V." and "Small Victory." Faith No More formed in 1981 in San Francisco. The band was originally named Faith No Man. The band underwent several lineup changes early in their career, along with some major changes later on. Billy Gould, keyboardist Roddy Bottum and drummer Mike Bordin are the longest remaining members of the band, having been involved with Faith No More since its inception.
A1 Land Of Sunshine
A2 Caffeine
A3 Midlife Crisis
A4 RV
A5 Everything's Ruined
A6 Malpractice
B1 Kindergarten
B2 Be Aggressive
B3 A Small Victory
B4 Jizzlobber
B5 Smaller And Smaller
Non-LP Tracks
C1 Easy
Written By – Lionel Richie
C2 Midnight Cowboy
Written By – John Barry
C3 Crack Hitler
C4 Midlife Crisis (The Scream Mix)
Remix – Matt Wallace
C5 The World Is Yours (Outtake)
Bonus Tracks
D1 As The Worm Turns (Mike Patton Vocal)
D2 Das Schutzenfest
D3 Let's Lynch The Landlord
Written By – Jello Biafra
D4 Be Aggressive (Live 1992)
D5 Kindergarten (Live 1992)
D6 We Care A Lot (Live 1992)
Record Label: Rhino Records
180 gram black vinyl housed in a gatefold jacket with classic black paper & plastic polylined inner sleeves.
2022 reissue of Angel Dust with different runout numbers.
"Parental Advisory" sticker but NO download voucher with this reissue.