Faith No More is a prime example of a band who achieve success
\nwith one song, and that is all that people know (or want to know)
\nabout them. Had it not been for “Epic” off their second major label
\nrelease
\nThe Real Thing<\/i>, this band would probably still be
\nlanguishing on college radio.<\/p>\n
My discovery of Faith No More was not with “Epic,” it was with
\ntheir 1987 release
\nIntroduce Yourself<\/i>, and the title couldn’t have been both
\nbetter and worse. It barely gave us time to get to know original
\nsinger Chuck Mosely, and in retrospect, this may not have been so
\nbad. But it also gave the world its first real taste of the band,
\nand showed us they ran both hot and cold on vinyl.<\/p>\n
The album opens up strongly enough with “Faster Disco,” and
\nimmediately you’re struck by the fact the band doesn’t seem to
\nquite know what it wanted to be. They could be a decent hard rock
\nband with the guitar work of Jim Martin (who I still miss), they
\ncould have been a funk band courtesy of the bass riffings of Bill
\nGould… hell, with Mosely’s often off-key warblings, they could
\nhave been a rap band a la Body Count. (For that matter, I
\nstill<\/i> don’t think Faith No More knows what kind of a band
\nthey want to be.) But “Faster Disco” is a great opening shot, and
\nleaves the listener looking forward to what the rest of the album
\nhas to offer.<\/p>\n
Too bad the very next effort, “Anne’s Song,” is a major step
\nbackwards. The first portion of the song is a positive enough
\nmessage, though musically it is a weak vehicle with which it is
\ndelivered. And the rundown of friends arriving for some event is
\njust tedious. Fortunately, the furious two minute blast of the
\ntitle track saves face.<\/p>\n
“Chinese Arithmetic” is probably the unsung classic on
\nIntroduce Yourself<\/i> – the mixture of funk with a touch of rap
\nin the bridge, and the crunching guitar\/vocal shriek close is
\nsurprisingly appealing. (However, the recycling of a portion of the
\nlyrics on “R n’ R” is annoying – what, you guys run out of original
\nideas so soon?)<\/p>\n
Too bad the moments of brilliance on this album are so few –
\nonly “The Crab Song” comes close, and is a solid effort of both
\nballad and funk which slams the listener into stunned acceptance.
\n“We Care A Lot” is an okay song, but it is more of a “novelty” item
\nthan a real hit. The rest of the album – well, they try, and it is
\noccasionally pleasant to listen to.<\/p>\n
Mosely, unbeknownst to him, was making an early swansong. He
\nwould be fired from the band (some say for drug abuse, I say for
\nmassacring the tonal scale), to be replaced by Mike Patton, who
\nactually could hold a tune while sneering at the same time.<\/p>\n
\nIntroduce Yourself<\/i> isn’t a bad album – I still occasionaly
\npull it out of the legendary Pierce Memorial Archives (call your
\nlocal cable operator) and reminisce about my days in college radio.
\nTen years after its release, it remains an interesting picture of a
\nband struggling to make it, as well as how much their songwriting
\nneeded to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5784],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-35675","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-faith-no-more","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35675"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35675"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}