I recall this album doing the rounds at university, but it’s not one that I think I ever heard; also I'm not sure if I’ve ever knowingly heard anything by Faith No More. Nothing on this album rang any bells, and they go all over the heavy metal map.
The opening track, From Out Of Nowhere, sounds very Eighties hair metal, with the amusingly named Roddy Bottum giving some nice Van Halen / Def Leppard synth backing. But then we leap to rap-rock, building on the earlier work laid down by Aerosmith / Run DMC with the track Epic. A track with a great name – Surprise! You’re Dead! – is more like a bit of Metallica-style thrash (this one written by guitarist James Martin), and if you have the non-vinyl version there’s a solid cover of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs; singer Mike Patton is able to imitate Ozzy quite nicely, leaping between a thrash metal growl, or a hair metal power scream. It’s the rap-rock style that dominates, a genre that Faith No More claim to have invented, even though Walk This Way was ages ago, and Jane’s Addiction have already started to go down this road. Well, the dates that albums get published and also which ones feature in this list are no good indicator of when musical genres actually began – it’s usually a good 5-6 years at least out of date.
Some of this album, I’ll admit, I kind of zoned out on as much of it felt like metal business as usual; I did like the variety touched upon by the band, though, and the cover of War Pigs alone is worth the price of admission.
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