FAITH NO MORE — We Care A Lot (review)

FAITH NO MORE — We Care A Lot album cover Album · 1985 · Funk Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Warthur
The key to grasping Faith No More debut's album is the realisation that it's approaching funk metal from an experimental post-punk direction - hence the sneering vocal style of Chuck Mosley, who whilst not the vocal gymnast Mike Patton is certainly isn't the deal-breaker some have made him out to be here. The worst you can say about Chuck's vocals here is that much of the time whilst they don't detract from the music, they don't add much either.

The opening title track got rerecorded on Introduce Yourself, and to be honest that version is superior - indeed, it's a bit of a bad choice of an opening number, since it isn't really representatives of the synthgoth-post-punk-influenced alterna-funk metal that the rest of the album deals in. At its best, the album fuses Chuck's disoriented vocals with a journey into the inner weirdness that, despite appearances, Faith No More were always hiding under the surface - Why Do You Bother? is, I reckon, a bit of a neglected classic on that front.

The album is often cited as giving rap in metal a head start, though as pieces like As the Worm Turns show Chuck's flow isn't that great when assessed from a rap point of view - but what he lacks in flexibility he makes up for with a great sense of atmosphere, pitching his vocals in a way suitable to the song at hand adeptly. Roddy Bottum's keyboards, meanwhile, play a role that's often as important as Jim Martin's lead guitar.

It's not a perfect album, mind - the production has its limitations and some of the tracks, like As the Worm Turns and the title track, are a bit underbaked - but it's much, much better than it's made out to be, especially once you get into the deep cuts.
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