FAITH NO MORE: The Real Thing (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

If there is bands that have upset the habits, it is certain that Faith No More's is one of them. Precursor of a genre called at the time Metal Fusion, "The Real Thing" will have already had the merit to reveal a kind of provocative troublemaker in the person of Mike Patton, from now on known for his experimental antics more or less appreciated via formations like Tomahawk, Fantomas and of course Mister Bungle.

This album starts strong for the time with this 'From Out Nowhere' with its nervous riffs and its few notes of keyboards hardly audible and yet essential. The title which follows, 'Epic', will have been a hit and a frank success establishing a new way of making metal by alternating lyrics rapped on a simple bass line and electric refrains from which will be inspired later on Rage Against The Machine and much later Pain Of Salvation...

The rest will be just as effective, with among others the excellent 'Surprise You're Dead', a real release of a little more than two minutes, the very tense 'Zombie Eaters' starting on an acoustic guitar to explode in one go, giving Patton the opportunity to spit his lyrics, and then fall back in the lull of the first bars or the instrumental 'Woodpecker From Mars', a weirdness of riffs, guitars at the limit of saturation and kitsch keyboards.

What will we remember most about this album? Certainly Mike Patton's nasal vocals, surprising when you know the vocal qualities deployed on the future albums, and direct compositions allowing to assimilate with a great ease the "contained" delirium of a band that is building itself. Faith No More has made a name for itself and it will concretize this attempt later with a much more mature and especially much darker "Angel Dust". - Official website

FAITH NO MORE

THE REAL THING

SLASH

ROCK