The 13th Best Album of the 90s: Faith No More - "King For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime" (1995)

Faith No More's most admirable quality was their way of annoying people by never doing the expected. So I suppose that someone like myself, who has derided their recent reunion tour as nothing short of an abomination, should be happy they haven't changed a bit in their quest to rub you the wrong way.

I was and still is (at least in principle) against this reunion for the same reason I'm against all reunions: Nostalgia is destructive, let sleeping dogs lie. I've seen footage of this reunion tour, and yes, the band is on top form and they sound fantastic. I still hate it in theory though, which makes me admire the band even more for not doing what I want them to. And since FNM seemed like the last band that would reunite, then reuniting would be exactly that unexpected thing they should be doing.

Aw fuck it, this could go round and round forever. And it makes my head hurt.

The art of annoying people just for the sake of it is something that FNM share with bands like The Melvins and Queens Of The Stone Age, and it never ceases to put a smirk on my face. There's no harm in being a bit of a crowdpleaser and giving your fans what they want, but never give them exactly what they want. You have to remember to always hold something back, mess with their heads a little and poke some fun at them. Something always have to feel a little off and uncomfortable.

Faith No More were (and apparently still are) the masters of this.

They could have just released a clone of The Real Thing, but no, they turned everything on its head and released Angel Dust instead. And for this their next album they went even more extreme. "More of everything" is a tired old cliche that too many bands use. "Yeah, like, the heavy parts are even heavier and the melodic parts and like even more melodic". Sigh. Spare me. But in the case of King For A Day... it's actually true.

Where Angel Dust was a fascinating exploration of mixing up everything at once, King For A Day... is almost entirely polarised. In the past they might've squeezed three different genres into the same song, here every style gets a track of its own. Much of this album isn't far from what singer Mike Patton was doing in Mr. Bungle at the time, perhaps because Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance played on it.

Star A.D. and Evidence are snazzy show tunes that would be played all over Las Vegas if its mayor was David Lynch. Caralho Voador is a laidback bossa nova sung in Portoguese, Take This Bottle is a sentimental country & western-tinged ditty that Kenny Rogers could probably do a good cover of, the title track is perhaps the sole track on the album that harkens back to Angel Dust, and The Last To Know and the utterly brilliant Just A Man are true show stoppers that just keep soaring and soaring. Most of it's pretty heavy though - Cuckoo For Caca, Digging The Grave, The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies, Get Out, What A Day and Ugly In The Morning are snarling beasts and probably as aggressive as FNM ever got. Maybe it's the result of the emotional release they felt after finally firing guitarist Jim Martin and being rid of all his tiresome behaviour.

Two years later FNM released their last album Album Of The Year which was a small step back to the Angel Dust days while retaining the ferocious quality of King For A Day..., a great album as well. But nothing beats this one, a real once-in-a-career type album.

(mp3) Faith No More - The gentle art of making enemies
(mp3) Faith No More - Digging the grave
(mp3) Faith No More - Just a man (recommended!)

Buy King For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime @ Amazon.com.

The video for Digging The Grave: