Faith No More - Angel Dust

This was my favorite album for many years. While I had enjoyed Faith No More's third album, The Real Thing, it wasn't until Angel Dust arrived in 1992 that I put all of my musical faith into Faith No More. Angel Dust changed everything for me musically; it opened my eyes to genre combinations I couldn't have imagined until I heard them here. I give Mike Patton a lot of credit, as this was the first Faith No More album on which he was able to contribute as a songwriter. On The Real Thing Patton was something of a hired gun, just a singer singing songs someone else had already arranged. In just three years between albums, Mike Patton returned to his former band, Mr. Bungle, and cut a new album with them, before taking what he had learned and lending it to Angel Dust. Experimentation became the norm. Samples held together the structure. Nothing was sacred. No one was safe.

Incorporating everything from metal and classical, Angel Dust sounds like nothing else, before its release or since. Perhaps that's why Kerrang! magazine named Angel Dust "the #1 Most Influential Album of All Time". How big of an honor is that? Let's put it this way: Nirvana's Nevermind was listed #2, followed closely by Black Sabbath and Metallica. That's good company to keep and even better company to beat. So, what is it about this album that muscles all the masters of metal into submission? Originality in the form of 100% unbridled, beautiful ugliness. If that description seems at all strange or exaggerated, just take a look at the front and back cover art (see above). The front is beautiful. The back is ugly. The front is polished. The back is raw. The front is majestic. The back is morbid. That is the promise, and Angel Dust delivers. Faith No More twists and turns conventional music to make something that isn't just improved, it's entirely new. Angel Dust is the gun in the knife fight, and it's aimed right at the gut.

When the banging first begins on "Land of Sunshine", you're immediately aware that something has gone awry. This isn't the Faith No More of before, and this band isn't aiming to please, they're aiming to kill. Direct hit. After hit. After hit. A number of tracks became singles, and those that didn't became fan favorites. Whether it was played on Top 40 radio or exchanged on mixtapes, every song was something worthy of extended exploration. While "Midlife Crisis" pits a Simon and Garfunkel sample in the verse against a Beastie Boys sample in the bridge, "Everything's Ruined", songs like "RV" explored entirely different avenues from seemingly distant planets. Take the tour - you'll be happy you did.

Highlights: "Everything's Ruined" and "A Small Victory" ("Jizzlobber" for the brave)

Soul Asylum - Grave Dancers Union

Having paid their band-on-the-fringe dues, Soul Asylum broke big in 1992 with the triple-platinum release of Grave Dancers Union, their sixth official album. Yes, sixth. Like I said, they paid their dues, and you can hear it on every track. Lead singer/songwriter Dave Pirner screams as if he truly may be trapped in a soul asylum of sorts. Some cuts cut through while others just seem to seep out slowly, but they come together in wonderful ways you wouldn't always expect on a triple-platinum album. Normally, when an album sells that well, it's full of fun, frolicking guilty-pleasure goodness, like Hootie and the Blowfish's debut album. But this isn't that kind of album. Soul Asylum actually delivers on their name and shows a little of their soul in these songs.

Hailing from the Minneapolis (same as indie rock legends Husker Du), Soul Asylum's sound combines a number of influences in unfamiliar fits and stops. While songs like "Somebody to Shove" unleash a no-holds-barred barrage of lyrical bullets, there are others like "The Sun Maid" that make me yearn for an open park and a picnic basket. Even more so than the emotion in Pirner's vocals, it's the weight of his words that attracted so many listeners. And while many now credit the band as an early contributor to the grunge movement of the early 90s, it was not until after that movement was underway that Soul Asylum got the credit they deserved. In fact, many early reviews drew direct comparisons to the singing/screaming similarities between Dave Pirner and Nirvana's notorious Kurt Cobain, despite Soul Asylum having been formed nearly a decade before Nirvana went from nobodies to the next great thing with the release of Nevermind. By the time Soul Asylum finally broke out, there were rumors the band was already breaking up. As the band completed recordings for Grave Dancers Union, half of the tracks had one drummer and the other half had another. It may even be the tension of that internal struggle that we hear in these recordings. Every song is well-produced and polished, but still raw in its energy and emotion, like a Harley Davidson on an open road. The album's massive success led many to suggest that Soul Asylum had merely sold their souls, or at the very least, sold out. If this is the sound of selling out, I wish more good bands would.

Highlights: "Runaway Train" and "Without a Trace"

+ I've been emailing back and forth with Michael Beinhorn, who produced this album. This guy has produced some amazing artists throughout his career. From Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden and Korn, to Aerosmith, Ozzy and Herbie Hancock, the talented Mr. Beinhorn has heard it all, and made it sound even better. In his own words: "My own commitment is to help artists get to the place where they can be expressive- but in their own unique and personal way. Music should all be able to coexist- from the most fabricated, mechanized, pop bombast to the most personal and unlistenable." Nothing could explain the expansiveness of this album better than the man who made it. Check out his blog: http://michaelbeinhorn.net/. He gets it.