Faith No More
– Angel Dust
If The Real Thing cracked the mainstream, Angel Dust took a chainsaw to it and fed the pieces through a meat grinder laced with glitter. It’s the album where Faith No More stopped playing nice and started dismantling the idea that rock had to be digestible. The band didn’t evolve—they detonated. Mike Patton, newly unshackled and fully unhinged, drags the listener through every vocal corner he can find: crooning, screaming, barking, chanting like a Gregorian lunatic. The rest of the band isn’t far behind, tearing down the scaffolding of funk-metal and rebuilding something grotesque and dazzling.
Best of…
This record is a sonic tantrum dressed like a carnival. Roddy Bottum’s keyboards are the secret weapon—church-organ gothic one moment, circus-warped the next. Jim Martin’s guitar tone could skin a snake, and the rhythm section locks into grooves so tight they feel uncomfortable. The whole thing pulses with a warped sense of humor and a lurking menace. It’s heavy, yes—but not in the ways metal was used to. No double kick overkill. No cartoon riffage. Just precision chaos and unsettling melody.
What makes Angel Dust so vital is its refusal to be pinned down. It’s an art-rock freakshow wearing a metal band’s name tag. It spits in the face of genre expectations. It’s fearless, obnoxious, and weirdly graceful. While grunge bands brooded in flannel, Faith No More built a glitter-coated doom machine and laughed while it rolled downhill.
Choice Tracks
Midlife Crisis
It’s a fake pop song with a ticking bomb under the hood. Patton lures you in with a smooth melody, but his voice fractures under scrutiny. That slippery beat and tension-soaked sample loop hold it all together until it breaks.
Caffeine
A sleep-deprived psych ward chant set to music. Patton screeches and whispers like he’s reading your mind through a bullhorn. It’s jagged, erratic, and somehow still grooves—barely.
Everything’s Ruined
Bitter, bright, and sarcastic as hell. This is the band’s twisted version of optimism, dressed in a shiny chorus and a smirking video. One of their most digestible moments—if you ignore the lyrics.
Malpractice
If a horror movie had a seizure, it might sound like this. It’s not a song so much as a panic attack you can dance to. Patton’s screams are practically inhuman, and the middle breakdown? Straight-up surgical nightmare.
A Small Victory
Marching band pomp collides with breakbeats and dissonance. Patton almost sounds sincere—until he doesn’t. One of the more “normal” tracks on the record, which still means it’s six degrees off center.
RV
A slow, sleazy lounge act fronted by a depressed trailer park philosopher. It’s grotesque, mundane, and hilarious. Patton turns boredom into theater.