Following up the groundbreaking The Real Thing was never going to be easy, and in a sense, FAITH NO MORE haven't tried. Angel Dust harks back to Introduce Yourself, bass-heavy songs laden with keyboards. In a way, this makes The Real Thing's soaring beauty seem a one-off. There's nothing here to match the sonic exhilaration of "From Out of Nowhere" or the rap assassination of "Epic."
This is a much more in-your-face album musically and follows the direction they took with "The Perfect Crime," their contribution to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Mike Patton's vocals are used much more as an instrument, and at times he sounds frighteningly like Simon Le Bon. "Small Victory" is typical of this. Solid melody, bass on low register, and a guitar line that wouldn't sound out of place as the main theme to a cowboy movie.
"RV" sounds like the Faiths have been listening to TOM WAITS, or maybe PRIMUS, as does "Crack Hitler." "Be Aggressive" could be THE FALL jamming with BABES IN TOYLAND, while "Malpractice" is this album's "Surprise, You're Dead."
Nowhere do they reach their previous heights of emotional intensity. They still give an aggressive attitude, but they don't leave you breathless at the end of each song like they've just free fallen from 10,000 feet. Angel Dust is still an excellent album though. Maybe The Real Thing was almost too good and they will be judged too harshly because of it. They are still probably the best hard rock band in the world. It's just that this could have been so much better.
Grade B
Chris Collinwood
Riff Raff
July 1992
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