52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #33

 Faith No More – King For A Day… Fool For A Lifetime

(Slash, 1995)

 Buy the album here

If this was an album review for a commercial site or a popular music magazine, there is no chance that the editor would give me this job.  When the assignment was offered out, “Mike Patton Fan Boy” would be scrawled over my joyful face or ingrained in the over-enthusiastic words of my near-instant response.  Impartiality, balance, objectivity… these words mean nothing to me when it comes to the output of the world’s greatest man.  Even a fan of his music struggles to keep up with the sheer volume of work – three albums over 2016-2017 so far – but the quality never seems to suffer.*  For a man who is so vocal about his reluctance to re-tread ground, this is an incredible feat.  Point being, Mike Patton is great.  Now let’s have a listen to the band that he is reputed to have felt creatively constricted by….

King For A Day... will make you think Mike Patton was a lunatic.  The entire album is about creative and talented musicians pushing each other to ever greater heights.  Seems Mike is a little hard to please.  The band’s first album without highly respected guitarist and friend of Bill & Ted, Jim Martin, is not the work of a band with limited avenues of expression.  It turns sharply, lunges lazily, jumps wildly, and sways gently.  It is a place where the thrash-schlock-horror of “Digging the Grave” can sit comfortably next to the lounge warbling of “Take This Bottle”.  It is an album of musical joy, unbeholden to a scene, a genre, or even fans.

The title track of sorts, “King For a Day”, encapsulates the Faith No More approach.  New and temporary guitarist Trey Spruance is asked to gently strum with an electro-acoustic while also bringing huge rock landslide guitars similar to those fans would hear on next release Album of the Year.  The quietly supreme Mike Bordin is bone-crushingly heavy, using every tom and cymbal in his collection, then suddenly his sound is so delicate it feels more like the thought of a drum strike than the strike itself.  Bill Gould’s wild, wandering bass rumble contributes to an undeniable heaviness that the floating keys of Roddy Bottum cut through in creating the equal parts earthquake/sensual massage sensation this album seeks.  The master of the voice Mike Patton simply does it all: croons, screams, gasps, rasps, coughs, and gigantic vocal hooks are interwoven until you no longer distinguish between them – they are all equally great.

 

As musicians they are serious masters of what they do, but this album feels as if it has its tongue firmly placed in its cheek while also appealing to our most sincere emotions.  No song displays this more than “Ricochet” with its infectious, wickedly spiteful, and sardonic chorus:

It's always funny until someone gets hurt
And then it's just hilarious

Faith No More love to pick up idioms and throw them in to the air or the dirt dependent on their mood, much the same as they will move seamlessly or destructively from heavy to light.  “Ricochet” maintains a thread of heaviness drawn through from album opener “Get Out” while also providing a new mood for “Evidence” to pursue.  Elements of reggae, lounge jazz, and soft rock interplay on this funky little number.  Mike Patton hits you with a gut-rumbling baritone before smoothing things through with his trademark melody and panty-dropping delivery.  It’s just enough to get you in the mood for something a little darker.

The tone found in “Ricochet” makes a return in “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” but with a more deliberate thrash heaviness.  Trey Spruance brings a catchy main riff, Bill Gould sets the dark tone with an ominous bass line, and Mike Patton draws on this with his Vincent Price-esque verse vocal.  With Mike Bordin’s drumming sounding like the ticking of a clock, there is a driving menace to this song that in part characterises the heavier parts of King For A Day and Album of the Year.  But on both of these albums the most enjoyable and successful moments are the faux epic, spine tingling, sing-along-if-you-can masterpieces of cheese.

On King For A Day that track is album closer “Just A Man”: a song so powerful you will feel like an angel, a demon, and a human all at the same time.  You will cry though you feel like laughing.  You will sway with your eyes closed even though you feel like moshing while smiling.  You will melt, evaporate, and solidify again before this song is done with you.  It is a huge song with lullaby verses, choruses seemingly sung by a chorus of Mike Pattons (heaven), and an insane spoken word section that will make you feel weightless before a choir picks up your featherlight frame and carries it to wherever you would wish to go when your time comes.  It’s like dying happy. 

Faith No More wrote albums very few others would ever think of or be brave enough to record, and they did it with the verve, wit, and commitment that makes them all passionate pieces of art. 

P.S. That’s what I meant about a lack of impartiality, balance, and objectivity.

 

*If you haven’t already, please check out Nevermen, Kaada/Patton, and Dead Cross – to name just the recent projects.