Following the success of their previous album “The Real Thing” and the established presence of new vocalist Mike Patton, Faith No More left their funk-metal sound to a more experimental approach and this led to the creation of the most certainly bizarre masterpiece, “Angel Dust”, a bold and adventurous musical journey and collision of genres.

Acclaimed vocalist Mike Patton displays here for the first time with the band his wide assortment of styles, cramming together metal’s brutal shrieking, rap’s rhythmic vocal cadences, progressive rock’s high-pitched singing and many more, all of which are tainted by his enthused mockery. Faith No More truly reveals itself as puree of strange but tasteful musical ideas and influences. On “Angel Dust” the band displays its pure insanity and unstable moods. The first tracks, “Land of Sunshine” and “Caffeine”, was written while Patton attempting a sleep-deprivation experiment, the first one featuring lines that are exclusively taken from fortune cookies (“Pat yourself on the back and give yourself a handshake”) and personality tests offered by the Church of Scientology and in the following one, he inspired himself of late-night television to get himself into the right frame of mind and from his own personal drug of choice (see song title). In the more keyboard-driven “Midlife Crisis”, the lyrics have a lot to do with observation and speculation, in fact, Patton says it’s about Madonna. In the hilarious “RV”, the band exposes its cynicism with a very country-ish song about a typical lazy white American trash wife-beater dad talking about how miserable his life is (the last line sums it up “…I think it’s time I had a talk with my kids, I’ll just tell them what my daddy told me, you ain’t never gonna amount to nothin’.” Other excellent tracks are “Malpractice”, the bass driven “Kindergarten”, and “A Small Victory”, a song about being a sore loser. The album concludes with the instrumental “Midnight Cowboy” which is basically the theme from the TV show; it is considered as a bonus track but it fits the album perfectly and is really soothing after the wild and savage succession of tracks

Definitely, “Angel Dust”may be one of the most under-rated albums of the 90’s as well as being one of the best and most influential of the decade. If you are crazy enough to appreciate it at first listen, it will certainly prove to be exhilarating and addictive.

by Kerry