Faith No More ‎– Angel Dust

There appears to be a few flaws with this particular pressing. The start of several tracks are missing. We're talking tenths of a second but very noticeable. There's also a problem near the start of Land Of Sunshine (about 2-3 seconds in) which at first I thought was a problem with dirt in the groove or the record was skipping, but I've watched the record closely, there's no problem, it is in very good condition and the needle doesn't skip but the audio that comes out does. It seems it was mastered with the flaw in place. In my view there's was problem with the lacquer at the cutting stage which probably affects all cuts of this version of Angel Dust which as the etchings denote is a cut particular to this Croatian pressing. The Croatian War of Independence fought at the time may have had some bearing on the issues described above.

This is regarding the 2008 Remaster on vinyl:

I'm a little bit disappointed and not just in the areas I expected. First of all, the remaster is not great. The guitars are thin and are noticeably quieter and the vocals are up way too much. Pitch is also increased, negatively affecting the dynamic of the album. However the album sounds a lot cleaner and a lot what was wrong with the originals muddy production has been addressed. I thought the latter would be a good thing but I'm afraid it's execution here is not great.

I've listened to the CD version of this mix and the same is true.

Though I'm happy with the quality of the vinyl itself, the fact that this mix has been committed and not the original (which was not great to begin with) is a gripe which I knew I'd have after hearing the above problems through CD first.

The packaging is average. They could have taken a leaf out of Sony's book and taken a good look at how albums like Pearl Jam's Binaural and Manic Street Preacher's Lifeblood have been assembled with beautiful glossy artwork a decent booklet with a bit of effort would have been the least you'd expect at this price point.

The artwork within the gatefold is a shockingly poor montage of the stills from the original album. These stills themselves not being the issue, just the crappy arrangement and stretched images which have lost their definition. Album specific liner notes would have been appreciated, and a little bio of the album would have been appreciated but instead we get gatefold adverts for Mobile Fidelity. Would it have been too much to ask to get the first verse of Jizzlobber included in the lyrics after the initial 1992 cock up has gone unaddressed yet again.

If you like the new mix, this pressing is fanstastic - flawless even. As I prefer the original mix - which is not what I expected since I've been campaigning for a remaster for the last ten years - this version will find a lot of shelf time.

Though I rate Angel Dust a 5/5, this version I'd score 3/5.

Faith No More were always antagonistic. Angel Dust followed 1989's The Real Thing with like drunk hillbilly pig fondling neighbour gatecrashing a Royal Wedding. Musically The Real Thing was puerile, sickeningly sweet with nasal vocals which was lapped up by the MTV heads and went platinum yada yada yada. Angel Dust was harder hitting, darker, more macabre, whimsical, was hardcore, more mature and laced with plenty of swerves and deviations offering genre changes from track to track whilst maintaining a melodic sensibility and balance. As such Angel Dust is a perfect mix of genuine creativity and pop musicality, a combination which is rare and often hard to pull off with similar success.

In 1992 there were many alternative rock bands, many anti-rock star cliques - most notably the bands emanating from the north west of America at the time - but Faith No More's creativity and vision meant that they were truly peerless for the short period from 1992-1995.

Angel Dust spawned a number of singles, Midlife Crisis, Everything's Ruined, A Small Victory (and Small Victory Youth Remixes) and in late 1992 Faith No More release I'm Easy which was then added to Angel Dust in their 1993 reissue.

In 1992 Kerrang infamously awarded Angel Dust 3/5 in their review but later declared that the album "grows on you like mould" also recanting their intial review in the Kerrang! Direktory of Heavy Metal (1993) and awarded it 5/5 retrospectively.

Not the most immediate Faith No More album, clearly but not a difficult album or an "art" record either. Angel Dust is Faith No More at their very best, creating a benchmark that the band themselves failed to meet again and influencing a whole generation of poor clones in the Nu Metal era to the chigrin of singer Mike Patton.

This is not only my favourite Faith No More album or my favourite of the 90's. it has stood the test of time and is probably my all time favourite record.

After hearing this for the first time, i was really disappointed. See - the first thing that i heard by FNM was "King For A Day..." and this one didn't sound much like it. But that's exactly the point - none of their albums really sound similar to each other. "King..." was more chaotic, while "Angel Dust" was the type of album which was supposed to provide "Epic #2" (cover of "I'm Easy" written around 1992 came very close, but its not included here), but didn't. In a retrospect, it pissed off a lot of people, since it sounded nothing like "The Real Thing" and had less emphasis on rap and more on rock. This one features plenty of heavy songs (Jizzlobber, Smaller & Smaller, Malpractice, Caffeine) as well slow and mid-tempo rock stuff (Everything's Ruined, Midlife Crisis, Kindergarten, RV). Not to say that there are no missteps (i don't see much point to an instrumental Midnight Cowboy at the end and some of the heavier songs don't sound too exciting). But, all in all, this is a good example of how FNM were able to create an album in a style different from the previous one and really take it to a next level, even while loosing mainstream popularity and some fans in the process.