Faith No More - The Real Thing [1989]

Whoa. "From Out Of Nowhere" really is a descriptive title. Way heavier guitaring. The heavy-section vocals have changed in sound drastically. Extremely focused on catchiness, but without compromising the integrity of the music. The writing is still just as kooky as ever. There's a wonderful amount of variation between the songs with some dropping into creative and beautiful ballads while others like "Surprise! You're Dead!" are more like metal songs. There's a bit more proficiency with the vocals on this one, too, with Mike performing some almost Death Metal/Black Metal vocals on one track. This is the first album that I can really get behind and enjoy over and over again. I should complain a bit about the production, but it really has a charming Hard Rock quality to it that I can live with.

Rating: 8

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Faith No More - Introduce Yourself [1987]

The production quality is a direct copy of We Care A Lot. "Faster Disco" seems to slide more into the harder rock area. "Anne's Song" is one of their comical songs. Admittedly, the lyrics are quite hilarious, not edgy, but fucking funny and satirical. Whoa, IN "Chinese Arithmetic" I can hear elements of Post Rock. It also ventures more into Heavy Metal than their previous stuff. "Rn'R" definitely has a modern metal feel to it, just without the production quality and vocals. It seems like this album really starts to display the band's growth at track 4. The inclusion of a re-recorded version of "We Care A Lot" seems pointless to me. There are a few songs that flop for me, but overall it's another creative album with better songwriting.

Rating: 7

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Faith No More - We Care A Lot [1985]

"We Care A Lot" has an enjoyably cynical feel to it, not so sure about the actual music. "The Jungle" starts strange but then goes into what could almost be considered a Black Metal feel, turning extremely dark all of a sudden. The album finally seems to have settled into some sort of groove with "Why Do You Bother". It's got a good atmosphere to it, even though the songs aren't doing a whole lot to give me a stiffy. Even so, I can honestly say that this album doesn't sound like anything else I've heard. Props for being unique, but I hope that the later albums will have songwriting more suited to my tastes.

Rating: 6

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All ratings are out of 10. Rating may not be a whole number.