Faith No More
– The Real Thing
The Real Thing is the album where Faith No More blew the doors off their own weird little church and let the chaos in. It wasn’t just a new singer—Mike Patton didn’t just step into the booth; he detonated it. His arrival turned the band’s funk-metal twitch into something unhinged, unpredictable, and often brilliant. You can hear a band not reinventing themselves, but finding the right kind of madness to build a shrine around.
Best of…
There’s no genre purity here. Instead, you get whip-lash shifts between thrash, synth-pop, rap-rock, lounge cheese, and full-on metal mayhem—all filtered through the band’s warped sensibility. This wasn’t crossover; it was collision. They didn’t try to blend sounds so much as smash them together and laugh at the wreckage. And Patton, the jester-priest with a throat like a Swiss Army knife, makes it all somehow coherent.
If it feels messy, that’s because it is. And that’s the point. The Real Thing doesn’t strive for polish—it thrives on tension, sudden drops, and a sense that it all might go completely off the rails. The band walks that line with glee, pushing every riff, groove, and scream to its limit. It’s loud, rude, and often ridiculous. It’s also never boring.
Choice Tracks
Epic
Yeah, it’s overplayed. Yeah, it’s a time capsule of 1990. But “Epic” still slaps—Patton bouncing between bratty rap, chest-thumping chorus, and that famous fish-flopping outro. It’s arena-sized arrogance in cargo shorts.
From Out of Nowhere
A sugar-rush opener. Tight as a coiled spring, this one punches out melody with speed-metal precision. It’s one of the few tracks where Patton plays it (relatively) straight—and still owns it.
Zombie Eaters
Starts off like a lullaby, ends in a fistfight. This one shows off Patton’s range—emotionally and vocally—and the band’s skill at weaving dynamics into their usual bombast.
The Real Thing
Ten minutes of controlled burn. It rides a groove like a slow-moving tank, picking up steam and menace with every turn. It’s less a song than a march into madness.