by Faith No More
1992, Slash Records

sound: Infused with more background noise and general weirdness (accordions, organs and ... cheerleaders), the beats on Faith No More’s 1992 album, “Angel Dust,” are harder, the distorted hooks catchier and Patton’s screeching longer than on the band’s previous smash hit, “The Real Thing.” Patton’s voice stands out among the gorgeous chaos. It’s like there are three Mike Pattons performing on the album, sometimes at the same time: Dirty Uncle Mike, who will hit on your girlfriend if you bring her by the house; screechy Aunt Mike, who is on the verge of losing her calm at any moment; and Cthulhu Mike, who shrieks like he’s being slowly disemboweled. Each song is thick with bass and drums, the tempo changing a few times on almost every tune. “Crack Hitler” is piloted by a demented Isaac Hayes-like backbeat. The drums in “Malpractice” give the impression the band is performing in the middle of a war zone. Behind it all, Patton holds it together with a voice like silk-lined meat hooks, adding that special slimy something to each track. He squeezes a few extra syllables out of the word “menstruating” in “Midlife Crisis.” In “RV,” a “Frank’s Wild Years”-esque tale of a guy talking about his miserable life, you can almost smell the Spaghetti-O’s and beer on his wife-beater as Patton says, “I just tell them what my Daddy always told me: You ain’t never gonna amount to nuthin’.”

the background: In 1989, Faith No More released the funk-metal album “The Real Thing,” its first with new front man Mike Patton. The album went on to sell millions of copies, and the video for the single “Epic,” with its closing image of a gasping fish, remained burned in everyone’s brain. It even earned the band a Grammy nomination. The daring 1992 follow-up record, “Angel Dust,” took a more experimental road. The band took its “metal” genre label and twisted it into scrap. Unfortunately, most of the world was stupid, drunk or in a coma in 1992—there has to be some explanation as to why a genuinely epic album such as “Angel Dust” was pushed to the side in favor of such bands as Kris Kross, Sir-Mix-A-Lot and The Spin Doctors. “Angel Dust” never climbed any higher on the U.S. charts than 10, selling millions less than its predecessor, whereas it sold as many copies as “The Real Thing” in the UK and Japan (ahem, places that also put The Pixies and Tom Waits on the charts way before we did). “Midlife Crisis,” the first single off “Angel Dust,” peaked at 23, and the album was lost to all but a rabid few.

the signifigance: The success of “The Real Thing” gave Faith No More a longer musical leash on which to roam. With “Angel Dust,” they showed they had moves that the music world had never seen. Individually, every song is an epic story; together, the collection plays out like something being performed for a circus in hell, where the cotton candy is laced with razor blades and the lions have horns. Patton proved, without a doubt, that he was a better acquisition for Faith No More than even Michael Jordan was for the Chicago Bulls. Listening to “Angel Dust” is like watching a Guillermo del Toro picture—at once beautiful and horrifying, compelling and strange. No setting on the dial does it justice. Sales of “Angel Dust” increased when later versions of the album were released with FNM’s straight-faced version of The Commodore’s song “Easy,” and it was named the number one most influential album of all time by Kerrang! magazine. Everything is not yet lost.