Faith No More Album Reviews

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We Care a Lot (1985)
Introduce Yourself (1987)

We Care a Lot (1985)

5.5

We Care a Lot / The Jungle / Mark Bowen / Jim / Why Do You Bother / Greed / Pills for Breakfast / As the Worm Turns / Arabian Disco / New Beginnings

We Care a Lot I started getting into a bunch of interesting bands right around the time when FNM reached their popularity peak (in the aftermath of their third album The Real Thing) and it always struck me how they never seemed to belong anywhere. Too unpredictable to be embraced by the metal community, too metal to be praised by the alternative hipsters and simply too fickle and (later on) too weird for unconditional mainstream acceptance, they always seemed to hover between camps. This album is no different, as the trademark FNM features are already present. However, it’s not the features that makes them that special, it’s the combination: there’s Billy Gould’s prominent bass lines that probably earned them the ‘funk’-tag, but that actually, like Roddy Bottum’s icy sheets of synth sounds, was heavily influenced by post-punk bands such as PiL, Theatre of Hate and Killing Joke. Add to this Mike Bordin’s tribal drumming style colored by African percussion accents and Jim Martin’s metal stylings, and you have a brand new melting pot, that’s not metal, neither wave, nor funk-rock. Off to a good start, then? Well, no, because the band relies on the same gimmicks too often (overly similar drum patterns, repetitive keyboards), only manages to come up with two or three tracks that betray some really good ideas, while the singer, Chuck Mosley, possessed one of the dullest, one-dimensional voices you’ll hear on albums by major rock acts (well, it’s understandable they went platinum only after he left).

Actually, his bratty snarl sounds pretty efficient on the album’s title track and only moderately classic track. Like Randy Newman’s “It’s Money That Matters,” it ridicules the self-important Messianism of Live Aid (and probably a few other related projects) in a way that’s still enjoyable (“It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it!”), but on a musical level, it’s a fairly simple but effective (catchy) foreboding of the band’s talent for merging the crude with ‘the accessible that borders on campy’. There’s nothing that stands out like the opening track and in fact, it’ll take you until well into the second half of the album before you’ll have something interesting to digest again: the instrumental “Pills for Breakfast” is probably the most incensed track on the album (and the only one that you could call – with a stretch of the imagination – “metal”), while the prominent, minimalist keyboard work by Bottum tries to cover up the rather standard riffs by Martin. Another keeper is “As the Worms Turns,” a track they’d keep on playing throughout their career (and they’d even re-record it with the next vocalist). Whereas the first minute of the song suggests the boys owned a few albums by despicable acts such as Alphaville (Germans with synthies!!!! THE HORROR!), Soft Cell or Bronski Beat, the song contains the album’s strongest riffs and decent vocals by Mosley. The remainder of the album is quite forgettable, with songs ranging from the slightly interesting (“The Jungle,” during which Mosley actually adapts a snarl reminiscing of Mark E. Smith’s bored yawns), the weirdly cheesy (the spastic, danceable funk-rock of “Arabian Disco”) and the downright stupid (“Greed” – the only good thing about it is the rhythm section). During most of the songs, it’s pretty obvious these guys would have something going for them in time, but somehow the separate pieces don’t gel into a enjoyable whole yet, and of course a singer like Mosley, whose off-key nasal rants get really tedious after a four minutes of “Why Do You Bother” or 60 seconds into “New Beginnings” further complicates things. Champions of the out-of-place throwaway, they also included a one-minute acoustic guitar piece, appropriately called “Jim” (turn up the volume really loud to hear Martin’s “I play it all fucking night”) and an average, dramatic rocker – “Mark Bowen” – they named after an early band member. Although the album sounds rather dated in 2004, it’s undeniable that producer Matt Wallace, who’d stick with the band for their next three albums as well, and who also made his debut here, did a fairly good job. However, all in all We Care a Lot remains a promising, but ultimately disappointing album by a band that still hadn’t figured out how to use their joint capabilities to full effect.

Note: Of course, there’s the early photography that might crack you up: Gould – the spitting image of Gary Oldman at the time – wears 1 (one) earring and a fancy hat, Mosley, like usual, looks like one of the Fishbone guys, while Martin was already an “acquired taste” before he became a frizzy-haired/bearded critter.

Introduce Yourself (1987)

6.5

Faster Disco / Anne’s Song / Introduce Yourself / Chinese Arithmetic / Death March / We Care a Lot / R n’ R / The Crab Song / Blood / Spirit

Introduce Yourself Apparently Slash (the label) saw a future for FNM, as they sent them into the studio with Matt Wallace and Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin as a nanny. Even though Berlin is credited as a producer, he allegedly let Wallace and the band figure it out. The budget was quite impressive (50.000 dollars), but in my opinion, the improvement isn’t that considerable: for a minor-budget debut, We Care a Lot sounded remarkably good (if a bit monotonous), but Introduce Yourself sounds more fleshed out and professionally crafted. In the meantime, Mosely hadn’t become a stellar vocalist, but this time around he succeeds in bringing some flair and diversity to his singing, so that it’s no longer the matter of annoyance here. Introduce Yourself is usually considered a huge improvement over the debut (many people considering this the real start of their career), but I’d say the band’s rapid progression started after this album. Granted, the release isn’t marred by obviously weak stuff like “Greed” anymore, but hearing it again after some time, the first thought that came up was “Yeah, pretty decent, but not, you know, IT.” They’d certainly managed to refine their own style, and hearing some of these tracks (“Chinese Arithmetic,” “R n’ R”) surely proves their innovative approach, but in the meantime, a lot of it has become fairly dated as well, while some experiments come off as long-winded or random.

Before giving you the impression that I’m always complaining, let me just say that the band introduces itself quite impressively with the first few songs. “Faster Disco” isn’t fast, nor is it disco, but it’s an enjoyable, minimalist rocker that gets its strength mainly from the prominent bass/drum-unison, as the Martin’ guitar isn’t too crunchy. Mosely’s multi-tracked mantra-exercises aren’t awe-inspiring either, but he comes up with something that’s vaguely catchy. “Anne’s Song,” the second single, is something completely different, some sort of funk-rock song that’s the first that contains true “rap” (unless you think the rant “We Care a Lot” is the real thing). While it’s become a bit stale in the meantime, there’s this out-of-place-melody that’s really effective, and something completely different than the 90 explosive, start & stop-seconds of the title track. Apart from the re-recorded “We Care a Lot” that became something of a cult hit (even though I can’t se why this version is better than the debut’s – the bass sounds too clickety-clack on this one), the remainder of the album manages to combine the debut’s elements, but both the ‘rap’ and ‘metal’ elements are stressed more explicitly. During “Chinese Arithmetic,” for instance, the guitar sound has more bite (finally!), while Mosely really proves himself to be a Fred Durst avant-la-lettre (what an honor). “The Crab Song” is a damn energetic rap-rock explosion that points forward to the next album’s “Epic,” but the problem is you’ll have to wait for three long minutes until it takes off. The problem with “Blood,” on the other hand, is that it doesn’t take off at all. Ok, there are some aggressive riffs, a synth sound that would make the guys in Kraftwerk piss their pants and some of Mosely’s most passionate vocals, but it’s only an exercise in rock, a rather tuneless, repetitive dirge that lacks the final ingredient that could set it apart. This also mars the promising-titled “Death March,” which starts off pretty funny with Mosely’s snotty rants (“95 cents? Fuck you, I’ll skate to the beach … and I look better gettin’ there!!”), but doesn’t offer much except for a gloomy atmosphere and a chorus that anyone would recognize as one of FNM’s. Luckily, the album finishes on a more positive note with a quite brutal, straightforward combination of melodic vocals and metal riffs. So yeah, the progression is undeniable as both the music and the vocals display more style and diversity, but again, there are only a handful of songs (and one of them a re-working) that still make an impact nearly 17 years after the album’s initial release. After these recordings, things would get complicated really fast. Somehow, Mosely pulled it off of falling asleep during the album’s release party, and this embarrassment, combined with excessive boozing and troublemaking would get him an exit-ticket. However, a much brighter future was lurking around the corner.