Faith No More's first post-reunion album...
Bias notes:
- I am a huge Faith No More fan and have been since 1995.
- Sometime a few years ago I lost my "everything Patton touches is gold" bias and found I wasn't enjoying his output as much, for various reasons. So I'm capable of disliking what he does.
- I've been terrified of this album, fearing it would be awful, or at best, a bit good. I was absolutely expecting the worst.
- If I were to rate the albums in favourite-to-least-favourite order:
- King For A Day / Introduce Yourself
- Angel Dust
- Album Of The Year
- The Real Thing
- We Care A Lot
The pre-KFAD albums came into my consciousness slowly, hearing songs at parties or on the radio, until finally with KFAD I decided I loved the band.
Thus, it is only really with Album Of The Year that I can say I had the experience of desiring, waiting for, and finally listening with excitement, a new Faith No More album.
My memory of the first listen to Album Of The Year is less positive than Sol Invictus. I thought "Collision" a bit rough, trying to be heavy when it wasn't. The last three songs were just bizarre. I hated "She Loves Me Not". But I loved a lot of it... and with recent listens I've decided I really like the album. For a while I rated it below The Real Thing but now I rate it above.
On my first listen of Sol Invictus I was genuinely shocked from the first track: struck by how much it didn't sound like Faith No More. There are a few songs on the album, ("Matador" especially) that could be argued sound a little like a mix of King For A Day and Album Of The Year (or perhaps "KFAD with Roddy involved and Jon on guitar"), but mostly to my ears it sounds brand new. And I love that. In hindsight it's a trick I think they've pulled off on every album since Introduce Yourself... sounding completely different, but still sounding like themselves.
After multiple listens these are clearly Faith No More songs. They've added, changed, their sound.
To my ears Sol Invictus sounds very much like the album was written from the strong base of piano, bass and drums, with vocals and guitars add after. Songs are structured around piano or bass/drum riffs, and rarely around guitar riffs.
I've read that the band feels the album is inspired by, or harking back to, their earliest work... I don't really hear it musically, except perhaps that many of the songs don't adhere to the typical "verse/chorus/verse" structure, and could perhaps have come out of studio jams, like the extended riff jams that started the band. That's most obvious in "Separation Anxiety" and "From The Dead".
Musically, ignoring the vocals, I can't fault the album. Being hyper critical I might complain about a few strange drum hits that I can't decide are deliberate or not, or perhaps about the mix, which sounds like an excellent demo rather than a super polished studio album, but I won't, because I love all of that. I love the punchy in-the-rehearsal mix. Other than the shock of style, I don't think anyone expected these professional musicians to be anything other than stellar.
Clearly what sticks out though is Patton. Not just because he's the elephant in the room, the god to so many. His vocal mix sounds a little... indulgent? Very strong in the mix, right up front, rarely in the background, with lots of harmonising and effects. It's vintage Patton. And I say vintage because he's been doing it in all of his post-Faith No More projects since 1999. The album really gains from some of this post-FNM range, but a lot of that early range is missing too.
One obvious change from previous albums is that Patton is often singing in a very low range, or growled and shouted. Perhaps his vocal range has dropped with age and he's working around that? It would explain his recent output and style choices. The lower range, almost growled vocals gives some songs a clear Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen vibe, coupled with the band's choice of acoustics, piano and slide guitars.
I'm irritated that "Sunny Side Up" is one of the most catchy songs, getting constantly stuck in my head, as it is the song I'm most conflicted by. I think some of the lyrics are just weird and don't flow well ("more than one way to fry an egg") but others I love ("rainbows will bend for me, curvy. Honey bees will sting for me, stingy, stingy!")
I hate the way he sings the "fry an egg" line. For me, the vocal style there is really rough, and sounds discordant. He repeats similar vocal theatrics-that-don't-work in "From The Dead", floating around notes like a diva, and in parts of other songs. Why? I think a producer might have pulled him up on that. Maybe not.
Perhaps it'll grow on me.
Generally though, the album is amazing. I'd struggle to pick a favourite, but "Black Friday", "Matador" and "Cone of Shame" are all up there. "Sol Invictus" is an excellent album opener, especially with "Superhero" after it. When I first heard "Superhero" and "Motherfucker" live I thought they were too long, unfinished... but with the album production and the ending guitar solos I think they're fantastic in context. Their performance has improved live too, perhaps easier to pull off with a studio version to refer to. I genuinely love "Motherfucker" now.
I don't know if the album will appeal to new fans. I cannot tell if the music is "pop" or "accessible". I like it, but my music tastes are very eclectic. Reviews have mostly been very positive, with a few negative, mostly from those hoping for Angel Dust 2, which was clearly not going to happen. Album Of The Year 2 maybe... but Sol Invictus isn't really that either.
Ranking the albums again:
- King For A Day / Introduce Yourself
- Angel Dust
- Sol Invictus / Album Of The Year
- The Real Thing
- We Care A Lot
Being consistent with my previous reviews, that'd give Sol Invictus a 7/10.
Other Faith No More reviews:
- Album Of The Year (7/10)
- Angel Dust (8/10)
- Another Body Murdered (7/10)
