Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Faith No More - Angel Dust (1992)

Turns out I knew more of this album than I ever realised.  Despite never owning a copy of this record and only sitting down to listen in full today for the first time I found so many memories as each track played, unlocking a myriad of good times spent with friends in college that I had rarely revisited in my memory banks since the 90s.  We weren't that interested in the curriculum that the college offered as part of its Performing Arts prospectus, choosing instead to do our own versions of musical theatre to the likes of Pantera and Metallica.  We also undertook a particularly damaging performance utilising the Angel Dust album as a soundtrack and got banned from any future performances as a result.

It's understandable now looking back why I have this affinity with the Gateway clan that I had all too easily dismissed as being just full of nu-metal bands.  In fact, thinking back today on my college days, bands such as Faith No More, Kings X, Living Colour, Helmet, Alice in Chains and Suicidal Tendencies occupied a big part of my listening time alongside some of my more extreme metal staples in the other genres.

Anyway, reminiscing aside, the point of my two paragraphs of nostalgia is that not only does Angel Dust represent an important time in my life, it is also an incredibly good album in its own right.  Operating more or less exclusively outside of the realm of metal for the most part it is an album of smooth textures mixed with jarring adult themes that often border on the unhinged.  As such it is a real "grown-up" alternative metal album that may always keep it's tongue firmly pressed in cheek but at the same time the aforementioned tongue has significant wounds from the teeth marks inflicted upon it also.

Abrasive at times and utterly bonkers on other occasions, you can't quite track the black comedy of Angel Dust without feeling a little dirty along the way.  It has hooks and melodies that stick with you like carpets in seedy bars; like tobacco odour in the clothing of a long-time cigar smoker; like damp-stained walls in old houses.  The killer part is how fucking accessible it all is.  I mean the catchiness of Midlife Crisis is almost infectious, the chanting and anthemic nature of the chorus to Be Aggressive is like some really dark punchline to a joke you are already wincing at the outcome of long before it is delivered, but still you keep listening.

Taken as a whole, in lesser skilled hands Angel Dust would just come off as a collection of songs, thrust together to make more than enough for the loose title of being an "album".  In Patton and company's hands though it is an end-to-end experience, unsettling and yet thoroughly entertaining at the same time.