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Oct 17, 2016 Faith No More By Frank Valish

In 1989, Faith No More hit the big time with “Epic,” an intense rap/sung track off the band’s sophomore album The Real Thing. The song reached #9 on the Billboard charts and stayed in the Top 40 for a total of 13 weeks. It’s video, with indelible images of an exploding piano and a flopping fish out of water, was plastered all over MTV.

The band followed The Real Thing with 1992’s Angel Dust, an album that saw Faith No More branching out in weird and diverse directions, something that must have surprised fans who only knew the band from its big single. But, for all the experimentation and genre mash-up of Angel Dust, Faith No More did not truly come into its own until 1995’s King for a Day…Fool for a Lifetime.

Reissued here as a double CD set, King for a Day proves itself as perhaps Faith No More’s defining release. Original guitarist Jim Martin had left the band after the Angel Dust tour, and King for a Day‘s opening lyric finds singer Mike Patton questioning, “What if there is no more fun to have?” That song, “Get Out,” is all skittering electric guitar and scream fit, with a distinct melodic line undercutting the vocal violence, all of which foreshadows the rest of the album to come.

King for a Day may be the perfect Faith No More album for its expert mishmash of styles, genre, and emotional affect. “Richochet” is as pure a pop song as Faith No More has written. “Evidence” is cocktail lounge music, with Patton showing he can croon with the best of them. “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” is a straight ahead rock and roll blitz, with Patton hilariously chirping, “Happy Birthday…fucker.” “Star A.D.” is horn-filled jazz. And that’s just the first five songs!

“Cuckoo for Caca” is three-and-a-half minutes of the most ingenious screaming ever put to record, followed curiously by the lullaby “Caralho Voador.” Heck, “Digging the Grave,” perhaps the best hard rock song in Faith No More’s cannon, doesn’t even come until track nine.

The second disc of the reissue adds B-sides, rarities, and live cuts, including three tracks that first appeared on the bonus disc to Who Cares A Lot? The Greatest Hits. Few of these are absolutely essential, but all are nice to have here in one place, alongside the album proper. Most interesting are “Absolute Zero,” which initially appeared as a B-side to “Digging the Grave,” the band’s silly yet seemingly un-ironic take on Bee Gees’ “I Started a Joke,” and an ultra-croony version of Al Martino’s “Spanish Eyes.”

Taken as a whole, King for a Day is a beautifully schizophrenic masterpiece, sequenced in the most illogical yet perfect way ever. It transforms itself from music to artwork while you listen. The bonus tracks are just icing on the cake.

(www.fnm.com) (www.rhino.com)

Author rating: 8/10