Album: The Real Thing
Artist: Faith No More
Label: Slash Records
Release Date: 20th June 1989
The Real Thing was Faith No More's first album without their original vocalist Chuck Mosley. It instead featured Mike Patton who brought a wider range of styles and lyrics to the bands repertoire. Gaining more success than any of the band's previous efforts, the album features a mix of styles built around a core sound. While it's not perfect it shows a marked improvement in the band's progression and musical ideas.
The album's opener 'From Out Of Nowhere' is a fast paced almost pop-based song with heavier drums and guitars and Patton's vocals to distinguish it from that sort of music. With a catchy chorus and big sound overall, thanks to a string accompaniment it sets high expectations for the rest of the album. The following song 'Epic' changes genre to more of a funk-rap in its verse, akin to the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers of the time, reverting back to a bigger sound similar to that of the first song in the chorus. With a long instrumental section both in the middle of the song and at the end, it's hard to place the album so far in a particular genre other than 'Alternative'.
'Falling to Pieces' is very much in the style of the first song; almost a pop style mixed with elements of heavier metal. Patton's unique voice is most noticeable in this song also. At just a little over 5 minutes, the song does end up being a little repetitive after a while and possibly could have done with being around 4 minutes like the two tracks preceding it. 'Surprise! You're Dead!' seems to be an excercise in just how diverse the band could make the album, with heavy metal overtones similar to Pantera and Metallica. It's the also the shortest song on the album at just 2 and a half minutes.
'Zombie Eaters' takes another u-turn in terms of sound, with acoustic guitar and strings accompanying hushed vocals which take a while to lead into the heavier section which is mainly palm muted guitar with a rap accompaniment. While it's a strange song, it's also a good example of how the band like to switch between sounds without much warning. 'The Real Thing' is the longest track on the album, in addition to being the title track. For all of its 8 minutes, it switches between the loud and quiet sections like the other songs of the album and doesn't really seem to warrant its length.
'Underwater Love' combines the pop and funk styling of previous songs, but doesn't really bring too much new to the album as a whole. There's some nice bits with backing vocals and prominent keyboard at the end of the song but it's not enough to impress to any large degree. 'The Morning After' seems to be quite clever musically with prominent bass and lots of different things going on between instruments. With possibly the best chorus since 'Falling to Pieces' it picks the album up a little.
'Woodpecker from Mars' is an instrumental departure from the monotony of the middle period in the album. It showcases the best of all the musicians (save for Patton) and is genuinely more interesting than most of the other offerings in excess of 5 minutes on the album. 'War Pigs' is a Black Sabbath cover which is very well executed and fits nicely into the bands overall style. At almost 8 minutes it's another long song but it manages its length much better than 'The Real Thing'.
The final track of the album 'Edge Of The World' has the final stylistic change to a slow, jazz feel. There's a piano in the background and apart from Patton's voice you wouldn't know it was even the same band. It's a strange ending to the album, all things considered. The first 3 songs are like a trip across pop influenced alternative metal, leading to a much heavier song after which the album loses focus for a while. Picking back up with 'Woodpecker From Mars' and 'War Pigs', it seems like it's fairly mixed overall.
Rating 3.50/5.00
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