Published on Jul 13, 1997
Faith No More is a prime example of a band who achieve success
with one song, and that is all that people know (or want to know)
about them. Had it not been for “Epic” off their second major label
release
The Real Thing, this band would probably still be
languishing on college radio.
My discovery of Faith No More was not with “Epic,” it was with
their 1987 release
Introduce Yourself, and the title couldn’t have been both
better and worse. It barely gave us time to get to know original
singer Chuck Mosely, and in retrospect, this may not have been so
bad. But it also gave the world its first real taste of the band,
and showed us they ran both hot and cold on vinyl.
The album opens up strongly enough with “Faster Disco,” and
immediately you’re struck by the fact the band doesn’t seem to
quite know what it wanted to be. They could be a decent hard rock
band with the guitar work of Jim Martin (who I still miss), they
could have been a funk band courtesy of the bass riffings of Bill
Gould… hell, with Mosely’s often off-key warblings, they could
have been a rap band a la Body Count. (For that matter, I
still don’t think Faith No More knows what kind of a band
they want to be.) But “Faster Disco” is a great opening shot, and
leaves the listener looking forward to what the rest of the album
has to offer.
Too bad the very next effort, “Anne’s Song,” is a major step
backwards. The first portion of the song is a positive enough
message, though musically it is a weak vehicle with which it is
delivered. And the rundown of friends arriving for some event is
just tedious. Fortunately, the furious two minute blast of the
title track saves face.
“Chinese Arithmetic” is probably the unsung classic on
Introduce Yourself – the mixture of funk with a touch of rap
in the bridge, and the crunching guitar/vocal shriek close is
surprisingly appealing. (However, the recycling of a portion of the
lyrics on “R n’ R” is annoying – what, you guys run out of original
ideas so soon?)
Too bad the moments of brilliance on this album are so few –
only “The Crab Song” comes close, and is a solid effort of both
ballad and funk which slams the listener into stunned acceptance.
“We Care A Lot” is an okay song, but it is more of a “novelty” item
than a real hit. The rest of the album – well, they try, and it is
occasionally pleasant to listen to.
Mosely, unbeknownst to him, was making an early swansong. He
would be fired from the band (some say for drug abuse, I say for
massacring the tonal scale), to be replaced by Mike Patton, who
actually could hold a tune while sneering at the same time.
Introduce Yourself isn’t a bad album – I still occasionaly
pull it out of the legendary Pierce Memorial Archives (call your
local cable operator) and reminisce about my days in college radio.
Ten years after its release, it remains an interesting picture of a
band struggling to make it, as well as how much their songwriting
needed to grow.