Few collectives since the birth of rock ‘n roll have inspired such a cultish throng of hyper-obsessive acolytes (or Pattolytes, if you will) like Faith No More. Hopefully they’ll have reached this part of the post to read my disclaimer instead of immediately scrolling down to the comments section to expound a litany of obscenities and threats directed solely at my personal well-being: I like Faith No More. Shit, I used to love the band. I still get goosebumps from Mike Bordin’s drumming (see here). Bass players don’t get much more solid than Billy Gould. Roddy Bottum still holds one of the best monikers in rock music (say it out loud, and insert a “fuckin’” in there for maximum effect). But as I get older, the more I question the soundness of my rampant enthusiasm for the group during my musical coming-of-age back in the ‘90s. A cursory examination of Faith No More’s six full-length studio records over the course of their roughly a decade-and-a-half existence reveals the following: a phenomenal “classic” record, a decent but lesser “breakthrough” album, two barely passable and seriously flawed attempts in genre-hopping, and two rank, steaming piles of drivel that are essentially unlistenable to these ears. Not exactly an All Star-worthy batting average. Does this sound like a group who deserve the massive truckloads of reverence and acclaim that’s still heaped upon them to this day, ten years after their disbandment?

The core of Faith No More – bassist Billy Gould, drummer Mike “Puffy” Bordin, keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and guitarist Jim Martin – was formed in San Francisco in the mid-‘80s. After a revolving door of singers (most infamously Courtney Love) the band inexplicably settled on Chuck Mosely, a walking trainwreck of a vocalist who was one part surfer burnout, one part pseudo-rapper, and about ten parts drug-binge hangover. During these formative years the group’s sound was basically a heavier kind of party-hardy funk, anchored by Bordin’s thunderous drums and Gould’s popping bass, and punctuated by Martin’s thin, buzzing guitar and Bottum’s simple string-pad flourishes. It wasn’t exactly an original or complex formula, but it was about the only thing that worked with Mosely’s semi-retarded barks acting as vocals. Other than the title track, debut We Care a Lot (1985) is entirely forgettable, an insipid, throwaway mess of lightweight, one-note-riffing funk-metal. Follow-up Introduce Yourself (1987) benefited from slightly stronger songwriting and a fuller production, but Mosely’s obnoxious, ham-fisted presence is unavoidable; there’s just no getting around the guy. The band got more mileage out of “We Care a Lot,” reprising it for a single the following year, an anthem that would have forever rendered Faith No More to “one-hit novelty” had the members decided to fold and return to their day jobs. Fortunately, Mosely’s days with the group were numbered, and the frontman was sacked shortly after the record release party for the album due to his erratic behavior and excessive drug and alcohol use.

“Anne’s Song” – Faith No More 4:34 (Introduce Yourself, Slash 1987)

So two weeks prior to recording The Real Thing (1989), the band recruited a young Mike Patton to handle vocal duties, recommended by Martin after heard a demo of Patton’s other band, Mr. Bungle. Light years ahead of Mosely, Patton was unquestionably, almost shockingly talented, a vocal chameleon of sorts whose contorted whines, tough-guy roars, and clipped rapping was a perfect match for Faith No More’s new direction, with hooks and intensity in equal measure, livened by a beefed-up production from Matt Wallace to boot. This was the age where an edgy video could propel a band into the stratosphere, and it worked for Faith No More in spades – love it or hate it, everyone remembers the video for “Epic.” Lesser album cuts like the title track and “Zombie Eaters” revealed a depth and focus to the songwriting that had been previously absent from the band’s material, while second single “Falling to Pieces” and “Underwater Love” retained some of the playfulness that characterized their earlier work. To help rein the modern kneejerk criticisms of The Real Thing as “dated,” it’s important to remember that prior to its release, not many bands were combining funk, metal, and hip hop as effectively, for better or worse (accusations of the regrettable birth of the nu-metal that plagued the ’90s aren’t entirely unfounded). Granted, I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing “Edge of the World” or “Woodpecker from Mars” again, but as far as breakthrough albums go, The Real Thing delivers for the most part.

“Zombie Eaters” – Faith No More 5:58 (The Real Thing, Slash 1989)

With The Real Thing’s worldwide sales just shy of four million units, the pressure was on the group to produce a worthy follow-up. Yet no one knew what the hell to make of Angel Dust (1992) when it was released in the summer of ’92. Any buoyant whimsy left over from the previous album was gone, replaced by a darker, warped, almost oppressive atmosphere that confounded critics and alienated fans wanting another “Epic.” The band’s desire to experiment and avoid the carbon-copy follow-up resulted in one of the finest records of the decade, accented by the fact that Faith No More had finally discovered a unique sound that was entirely, sublimely their own. Patton, especially, went from a spandex-clad kid with a funny haircut to a vocal revelation seemingly overnight, jump-cutting from a piercing shriek to a baritone croon in the blink of an eye with breathless dexterity. Angel Dust managed the feat of each track sounding completely unlike the others without the album losing any sense of coherency as a whole: the full-throttle assault of “Caffeine,” the nightmarish sludge metal of “Jizzlobber,” the country-fried trailer-park drama of “RV,” the pulsating funk of “Everything’s Ruined.” Then there are the cuts that defy description, like “A Small Victory” and “Malpractice”; even the inferior tracks like “Crack Hitler” trumped anything the group had recorded to date. Within a few months of its release, it slowly became apparent that Faith No More had unleashed a masterpiece upon the public. The band toured the hell out of the album, working the European summer festival circuit and appearing at outdoor arenas with the likes of Metallica, Soundgarden, and Guns N’ Roses.

“Kindergarten” – Faith No More 4:31 (Angel Dust, Slash 1992)

(As an aside and bonus, here’s the movement from Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 (1960) that was sampled in “Malpractice” [though the band actually used The Kronos Quartet’s version].)

“String Quartet No. 8 – II. Allegro molto” – Dmitri Shostakovich 2:44 (Manhattan String Quartet: String Quartets 3 and 8, Centaur 1986)

Then the problems started. After releasing a Commodores cover as a single (“Easy”), Martin, who for many was the “look” of Faith No More and had publicly expressed his displeasure at the outcome of Angel Dust (he had very little input in the compositional process), was fired under less-than-amicable circumstances. The search for a new guitarist began, with the group welcoming (somewhat reluctantly) Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle into the fold. King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime (1995) was written mostly by Gould, Bordin, and Patton – Bottum’s signature keyboards are curiously absent from most of the material (he was reportedly battling drug addiction at the time of the recording). Spruance, one of the most brilliant and mind-warpingly original guitarists of his generation, is sadly relegated to little more than distorted power chords here; it’s genuinely difficult to believe that it’s his playing on the album. Whether he was just out for a paycheck or had a total lack of enthusiasm for the songs is anyone’s guess, but the sound ultimately suffers for it, and one can’t help but long for the color of Bottum’s keys. Lead single “Digging the Grave” was nothing spectacular, suffering from a stripped-down blandness that characterized much of the record. “What a Day,” “Ugly in the Morning,” and “Cuckoo for Caca” are Faith No More-by-numbers, and even some of the riskier songs, like the midnight lounge-soul of “Evidence” and the country twang of “Take This Bottle,” don’t survive more than a few listens. The tracks that work best are the ones that are the least self-conscious, like “Just a Man”’s dub-meets-Gospel-ballad, the collision of showtune funk with a lively brass section on “Star A.D.,” and the atmospheric prog of album centerpiece “King for a Day.” Spruance departed before touring was scheduled to begin to finish work on Mr. Bungle’s magnum opus Disco Volante (1995), and Faith No More was yet again without a guitarist. The band promoted roadie Dean Menta to the guitar slot for the tour and parted ways with him shortly afterward.

“King for a Day” – Faith No More 6:35 (King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime, Slash 1995)

There are a few items of note at this juncture in the band’s career. For one, their popularity on either side of the Atlantic had see-sawed, with a new legion European listeners following the group’s every move while their prominence in the States had waned. Side projects also began to dominate the lives of each member, with Bordin finding lucrative side work manning the skins for Ozzy, Bottum concentrating on his Imperial Teen, and Patton venturing further into the esoteric abyss with Bungle and solo work for John Zorn’s Tzadik label. Under these circumstances, it’s a miracle that Album of the Year (1997) turned out as well as it did, although the response from the public was generally lackluster. Jon Hudson of Systems Collapse filled in for the role of guitarist for a dozen selections that more or less followed in the anything-goes mold of King for a Day, ranging from some of the group’s finest work (the stunning “Stripsearch”) to miserable, uninspired dirges (“Paths of Glory”). A funereal air of finality – but not quite closure – hangs over the record like a fog, and anyone who had been following the group’s trajectory since the beginning of the decade couldn’t deny their own suspicions that the half-hearted attempt of Album of the Year was a clear signal for an impending breakup. Sure enough, Gould announced the split in the spring of the following year, but by that point, only the diehards were lamenting Faith No More’s disbandment.

“Stripsearch” – Faith No More 4:29 (Album of the Year, Slash 1997)

I’ll admit that much of Faith No More’s material has aged well with time, albeit somewhat peculiarly – Album of the Year becomes exponentially less of the disaster I made it out to be upon its release with each passing year, and there was a point in the late ‘90s when I couldn’t even sit through one song from The Real Thing. With an oeuvre this uneven – let’s not forget those earlier Mosely-fronted outings, much as we’d all like to – and given the patchy, hit-or-miss nature of the group’s later work, I posit my original case: is Faith No More really worthy of Hall of Fame status? I’m certainly up for hearing arguments in their defense.

(1978) Funkadelic – One Nation Under a Groove (Warner Bros.)
(1979) XTC – Drums and Wires (Virgin)
(1980) Talking Heads – Remain in Light (Sire)
(1981) David Byrne & Brian Eno – My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Sire)
(1982) XTC – English Settlement (Virgin)
(1983) Cocteau Twins – Head Over Heels (4AD)
(1984) Minutemen – Double Nickels on the Dime (SST)
(1985) John Zorn – The Big Gundown (Nonesuch)
(1986) Camper Van Beethoven – II & III (IRS)
(1987) Sonic Youth – Sister (SST)
(1988) Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden (EMI)
(1989) De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy)
(1990) Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam)
(1991) Black Sheep – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (Mercury)
(1992) Faith No More – Angel Dust (Slash)
(1993) Stereolab – Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements (Elektra)
(1994) Shudder to Think – Pony Express Record (Epic)
(1995) Mobb Deep – The Infamous (Loud)
(1996) Orbital – In Sides (FFRR)
(1997) Emperor – Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (Candlelight)
(1998) Tortoise – TNT (Thrill Jockey)
(1999) Built to Spill – Keep It Like a Secret (Warner Bros.)
(2000) The Sea and Cake – Oui (Thrill Jockey)
(2001) Opeth – Blackwater Park (Music for Nations)
(2002) Underworld – A Hundred Days Off (V2)
(2003) Ellen Allien – Berlinette (BPitch Control)
(2004) Ghostface Killah – The Pretty Tony Album (Def Jam)
(2005) Sleater-Kinney – The Woods (Sub Pop)
(2006) Enslaved – Ruun (Candlelight)
(2007) Pig Destroyer – Phantom Limb (Relapse)

2008 is yet to be seen, but my money’s on the upcoming Enslaved release – and I haven’t the slightest what it will sound like. Expectations, you say?

Actually, before I commence linkage, I’ll reiterate for the umpteenth time to those who haven’t sent me an email asking why I haven’t been posting in over three months: my RSS feed thingy has been updated since I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 back in April. It’s over on the sidebar, moved up near the top for everyone’s convenience. Update it for a magical, mystical, majestical experience involving coverage of 20 Rush songs in 20 separate posts.

Last October I penned an ill-conceived essay on where I was “at” with indie rock. Last week fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua concisely nutshelled my smattering of thoughts in one sentence: “We’re stuck with a generation of young indie musicians who are more interested in fitting into pre-existing genres and aesthetic communities rather than developing their own concepts, sounds, and styles.” Then he goes on to suggest that today’s musicians should be studying the ideas of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989). Brilliant.

Based on his hilarious guest drops over at Passion of the Weiss, I’ve always thought that if there was anyone who absolutely needed an online page for expressing opinions and provoking discussion (some may know it as a “blog”), it was Philadelphia’s phinest, Zilla Rocca. He now has one. It’s called Clap Cowards. Don’t sleep.

What a sad, sad world we live in when a fascinating recent discovery that “a series of chirps and whistles” emitted by Earth and caused by radiation is subjectively summed up by the media as:

“The sound is awful.”

Because natural sonic phenomena should sound like a lost Mozart sonata. Unbelievable.

Dan Love’s beat deconstructions are always first-rate, but his recent analysis of Black Moon’s “Enta da Stage” was particularly stellar.

Moistworks’ entries have been surprisingly hit-or-miss lately, but Brian’s ruminations on drinking certainly fall into the former camp.

So Oh Word’s Rafi logs into his Facebook account one day, and… you just have to witness this hilarity first-hand in order to believe it.

Doc Zeus posts the best review I’ve read yet of Nas‘ latest, titled (of course) Untitled (2008). Suffice it to say that it will not make my Year-End List.

Favorite new site: The House Next Door. The internets need more film blogs like this.

Lastly, I plan on counting down the days until the US release date of Enslaved‘s latest long-player, due sometime in October. To further fuel to my anticipation, does anyone (read: other WordPress users) know of some kind of widget “counter” that I can put in the sidebar? Hit me up via email or in the comments.

For my money, there is no finer piano trio record than Bill Evans’ Portrait in Jazz (1959), although I’d agree wholeheartedly that the following Waltz for Debby (1961) is just as sublime. Few of the selections in this collection benefit more from the remastering than Portrait, the rich pastels of Evans’ voicings taking on a new life as the brittleness of the original recording is remedied, and bassist Scott LaFaro’s invaluable presence in the mix is increased tenfold. If you’re not completely swooned by “Spring Is Here” or the group’s interpretation of “Autumn Leaves,” you’re missing a lot more than just a pulse. Absolutely timeless and unequivocally essential. Wes Montgomery’s breakthrough The Incredible Jazz Guitar (1960) is another welcome rediscovery, arguably his finest hour and a far cry from his late-career schmaltz-with-strings sessions with producer Creed Taylor. The raw intensity between the quartet on opener “Airegin” is still incendiary and fresh, and Montgomery’s touch on the ballads like “In Your Own Sweet Way” is exquisite. Everything about what made the leader such a sensation and “the best thing to happen to the guitar since Charlie Christian” is here in spades: blocky piano-like chords, thumb-picked flights of 16th notes, his signature octave runs that sound almost inhuman. This is one of those “if you could only own one by such-and-such artist” records whose rewards must surpass a hundred listens.

“Mr. Walker” – Wes Montgomery 4:32 (The Incredible Jazz Guitar, Riverside 1960)

Montgomery’s meeting with vibraphonist Milt Jackson on Bags Meets Wes! (1961) has been repackaged enough times to the point of absurdity, but it remains a solid set and one of the highlights of the latter’s discography (his work with the Modern Jazz Quartet excluded, of course); Sam Jones’ bass is captured beautifully in the left channel on this edition. Montgomery also appears in fine form on Nat Adderley’s Work Song (1960), a record that has been on my wish list for years, and despite my generally tepid response to blues-based blowing sessions these days, it’s a pretty infectious listen. Not a ‘classic’ by any means, but certainly a worthy addition (though the analog distortion on “Pretty Memory” is curiously unnerving). Coleman Hawkins’ career-reviving The Hawk Flies High (1957) is also a first encounter for me, an immensely satisfying listen that offers further insight into Hawk’s ingenious adaptation to practically any setting, even one as odd as one that includes the presence of trumpeter Idrees Suliemann and trombonist J. J. Johnson.

“Laura” – Coleman Hawkins 4:34 (The Hawk Flies High, Riverside (1957)

Thelonious Monk was Riverside’s first major signing, so it’s hardly surprising that the pianist is represented in the Keepnews Collection again for a third time (proceeded by At Town Hall [1959] and Plays Duke Ellington [1955]). The stories behind the recording of Brilliant Corners (1956) are almost hilariously over-the-top – how the title track was virtually cursed from the start and meticulously assembled from 24 (!) takes, to a pissed-off Oscar Pettiford miming his bass playing to spite the leader, sending the engineer into a near-mental breakdown – and yet despite all of its flaws, it remains both fascinating and entertaining as ever. Keepnews’ liner notes in this new edition are indispensable and almost worth the purchase price of the disc alone. Also present during the Brilliant Corners fiasco was tenor giant Sonny Rollins, whose underrated Freedom Suite (1958) deserves more than its current footnote status in trajectory of his career. The twenty-minute tour-de-force of the title track tends to overshadow the brief afterthoughts of standards on side two, making for a rather lopsided listening experience, but if nothing else the record is important in the development of Rollins’ compositional talents, which tend to get overlooked in discussions of his oeuvre.

“Brilliant Corners” – Thelonius Monk 7:47 (Brilliant Corners, Riverside 1956)

I can think of a dozen records from pianist McCoy Tyner’s catalogue that deserve the 24-bit reissue treatment more than his bloated Fly with the Wind (1976) project (namely Sahara [1972] and Trident [1975]), but the remastering job here removes some of the original CD transfer’s chalkiness, helping to spotlight the impeccable air-tightness of a rhythm section like Ron Carter and Billy Cobham. Still, I’ve never been sold on the pairing of Tyner’s muscular, full-bodied playing with the dense sonorities of a string section, and the record mostly sinks under its own weight. Cannonball Adderley’s In New York (1962) is another head-scratcher, one of the lesser outings in a long series of platters for Capitol and OJC in the early ‘60s. Recorded with his working sextet at the time – which included brother Nat and Yusef Lateef on horns, plus a young Joe Zawinul – the session rarely rises above mere competency; this is the era when Adderley seemed stuck in an endless recycling of his own jollied-up licks and phrases, churning out album after album of good-time nightclub jazz in an assembly line fashion. Trumpeter Blue Mitchell’s Blue Soul (1959) fares better in the R&B-jazz category, a slick and soulful date with a band that can’t be faulted, and the electricity between the leader and Jimmy Heath’s tenor sax makes up for the rather run-of-the-mill material.

“Park Avenue Petite” – Blue Mitchell 3:58 (Blue Soul, Original Jazz Classics 1959)

Devo Hardcore Devo, Vol. 2: 1974-1977 Rykodisc 1991

One of the more lesser-known pieces of pop music trivia is that before the ’80s New Wave, oddball stage costumes, and the universal success of “Whip It,” Akron, Ohio’s Devo recorded some of the most bizarre, incomparably brilliant music ever committed to tape. Four-track tape, that is, which is the recording medium of which the band’s two Hardcore compilations are sourced from. These basement demos were unearthed by Rykodisc and released in 1991 before going out of print, and are now fetching steep prices on the online auction market, but they’re worth every cent – especially the second volume, which is even more delightfully warped than the first. It’s a heady challenge to describe the material here without succumbing to schoolgirl-like levels of giddiness, but I’ll try to rein my enthusiasm down to a manner of coherency. Hardcore Vol. 2: 1972-1977 (1991) contains all of the following: surf guitar freakouts, slick power punk, candy-coated pop songs, psychedelic rave-ups, serene electronic mood pieces, and the most impressive application of shitty malfunctioning synths that I’ve ever heard in a “pop music” context. Hell, there are so many tracks that are just beyond description I would have an aneurysm trying to explain them. Let’s just say that they’re in spirit with the cover, a shot of the band wearing 3D glasses and fake plastic breasts accompanied by half-naked women in various sexual poses, perfectly in line with the “what the fuck exactly is going on here?” mantra that reverberates around the listener’s head when first hearing the record. I don’t even care for the rest of Devo’s catalogue; the Hardcore volumes, on the other hand, are truly something special.

“Can You Take It? – Devo 3:02 (Hardcore, Vol. 2: 1974-1977, Rykodisc 1991)

Bernard Herrmann The Day the Earth Stood Still 20th Century Fox 1951

While it would certainly be a tough call, my vote for greatest film composer of all time would have to go to Bernard Herrmann. Generally speaking, I’m not one for soundtracks and other programmatic music without their corresponding visuals (blaxploitation titles and various Morricone works excluded), but Herrmann’s scores stand up so well as “absolute music” that I’ll gladly pick up anything with his name on it regardless of whether I’ve seen the accompanying film or not. There is a chain of thought that most people follow whenever they hear the name “Herrmann,” which goes something like, “Hitchcock – Janet Leigh shower scene – now-parodied “eek!-eek!” strings – horror music,” but Herrmann’s score for The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is eons more frightening. From a strictly instrumental standpoint, what the composer did here was entirely groundbreaking at the time, employing two theremins, amplified strings, organs, vibraphone, and various brass and percussion – light years ahead of the standard four-section orchestra that was de rigueur in the film music industry back then. The effects that Herrmann wrings from this setup are simply astonishing: dark swells of sonorous brass combined with the psychotic electronic hum of the two theremins, nervous violin drones and chilling bursts of white noise from the clashing cymbals. There are a couple of Copland-ish “Americana” pieces to break the tense atmosphere halfway through, but by and large, this is edge-of-your-seat music that begs for headphones and a dark environment. For purely sentimental reasons, Vertigo (1958) will always remain my favorite of Herrmann’s scores, but The Day the Earth Stood Still comes in damn close as a runner-up. (This score was re-recorded in 2003 by Varese Sarabande with Joel McNeely conducting, and while its fidelity is crystalline compared to 20th Century Fox’s transfer from the master tapes, the original is still to be preferred.)

“Prelude/Outer Space/Radar” – Bernard Herrmann 3:50 (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 20th Century Fox 1951)

JD & The Evil’s Dynamite Band Explodes Across the Nation Soul Fire 2001

With no information to glean from the production credits on the jacket and little coming up in the way of a Google search, I still know next to nothing about JD & The Evil’s Dynamite Band. I mail-ordered an LP copy of Explodes Across the Nation (2001) from the Truth and Soul site a few years ago without hearing a note of the music, one of those rare caution-to-the-wind moments that I can’t afford now that my income isn’t of the disposable variety. What a jewel this album is – albeit one that’s been nicked, scratched, cracked, and submerged in a barrel of used motor oil. In terms of pure vibe, Explodes’ closest comparison would be the scorched-earth, apocalyptic funk of Miles Davis’ Agharta/Pangaea (1975) records, but weirder, grittier, and, well, much more “evil.” The funk here is raw, loose, and almost otherworldly, with backward vocal samples, torture-chamber percussion, and a menacing voice whispering, “DIE” on occasion. Song titles include “Beer (So Nice) Right On” and “My Beach, My Waves, Fuck Off!” This is precisely what funk shouldn’t be – inaccessible, cryptic, drugged to a near-comatose state of hypnosis – but it works marvelously. I’d be tempted to sacrifice one of my toes to hear another full-length from the group, assuming the members are actually mortals instead of ghosts who haven’t already dissipated into the ether. If you like your funk with a sinister, uneasy edge, you’ll love this (then purchase the above Miles records, along with Dark Magus [1974] and On the Corner [1972]).

“Heavy, Heavy… Heavy” – JD & The Evil’s Dynamite Band 4:19 (Explodes Across the Nation, Soul Fire 2001)

Peter Thomas Film Musik Polydor 1997

German TV and film composer Peter Thomas experienced a bit of a resurgence in his work during the late ‘90s, as everyone from Jarvis Cocker to Stereolab eagerly cited his music as a heavy influence on their own material. A handful of European labels rushed to issue as many Thomas “lounge” compilations as the market could handle, all but ignoring his horror and spy soundtracks as well as his more experimental works (he actually invented and developed a synthesizer called a ThoWeiphon). Film Musik (1997) was one of the few that got it right, a two-in-one disc that combined Thomas’ soundtracks for the 1960s German television series Edgar Wallace and Jerry Cotton. Like many of the greats, Thomas was at his best when he took unthinkable risks with his music, and Film Musik is loaded with cues that flagrantly span extremes: free jazz colliding with a bluesy sitar, a rollicking ballpark organ pitted against tense brass figures, a dreamy harp accenting a thick buzzing guitar, and so on. It would be convenient to dismiss this music as little more than camp or kitsch, which is an incredible disservice to Thomas’ ingenious arrangements, to say nothing of his sheer balls when it came to instrument combinations. Even the players here sound hesitant, unsure, and not a little clumsy, which only adds to the music’s charm, as one envisions the guitarist scratching his head uneasily at the direction of “noisy beach-party surf guitar solo.” With nearly 50 cues and vignettes, there’s enough Thomas here to snack on for weeks, which is why I believe it’s the best introduction to his anomalous sound-world.

“Der unheimliche Mönch” – Peter Thomas 2:45 (Film Musik, Polydor 1997)

Various Artists Princess Nicotine: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) Sublime Frequencies 2004

Whenever I feel like my listening tastes have stagnated and there’s little hope for any sort of new music exciting me anymore, I conveniently (and arrogantly) remind myself that there are seemingly hundreds of thousands of “world music” records out there that are just waiting for my ears to discover them, ravage them for weeks, then spew out some psychobabble on this site about how incredible they are. I was likely in one of these moods when I picked up a used disc of Princess Nicotine (2004) for five bucks in a CD Spins a few years ago, intrigued by the cover art and the fact that I had little idea of what Burmese pop music actually sounded like. And I’m still struggling to describe, with any sort of accuracy, how bizarre and flat-out amazing the music contained within this disc is. Princess Nicotine was compiled by a gentleman named Alan Bishop, who journeyed to Myanmar back in God-knows-when and purchased and/or traded armfuls of 45s and cassettes until he had his dozen favorites to compile here: batshit-insane signatures and stop-start patterns that only a grindcore band could match, pastoral love songs based on mind-warping microtonal scales, thunderstorms of percussion aerobics with a de-emphasis on pulse, stoned mid-tempo psychedelia, gongs, chants, harps – it’s all here. I guarantee that you’ve never heard anything like it, and here’s the best part: it’s all fucking phenomenal. There is a wonderful looseness to the ensemble playing, even when executing some sickeningly complex passage, that simply can’t be replicated, and the sheer number of unidentifiable instruments bouncing around the mix is enough to keep me entertained for hours. Kneejerk descriptors like “snake charmers on crack” are not only condescending, naïve, and flat-out ignorant on my part, but more importantly, they prove how futile it is to place everything in the context of Western musical systems and thought – and so help me Christ if I hear someone bitch about the fidelity. Princess Nicotine has become something of a rarity since it went out of print some time ago, but if you happen to stumble across it, by all means pick it up immediately. Just trust me on this one. You’ll be thanking me for years.

“Really Strange and Weird Things” – Sein Sah Thin 3:15 (Princess Nicotine: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar [Burma], Sublime Frequencies 2004)

Put simply, Watershed is a mess. Not a failure by any means, but easily the most unfocused and least engaging of the band’s “observations” to date.

For starters, you know something is awry on an Opeth record when you can count the number of furious, demonic, grab-you-by-the-balls riffs on one hand. Åkerfeldt, whose riff-writing abilities were once on par with the almighty Chuck Schuldiner – seriously, listen to “The Leper Affinity” again, or the entirety of Blackwater Park (2001) for that matter – now seems to favor standard power chords, open-chord strumming, and finger-picked arpeggios. Most of what constitute “riffs” here have been slowed down to sludgy, doom metal plods that have been done to death by the band and their stoner contemporaries countless times before. Those glorious riffs, whose grooves ran miles deep, could obliterate armies of guitarists, and trump the entire catalogs of most bands, are few and far between here. When a thundering, good old-fashioned palm-muted riff does finally appear, such as the 2:30 mark in “Heir Apparent” or during “Hessian Peel” at 6:31, it’s almost as if salvation has finally arrived. Sadly, it’s short-lived, as Åkerfeldt’s attention deficit disorder gets the best of him and the track shifts gears for the umpteenth time into some idyllic acoustic interlude.

Which brings me to my next complaint, the complete disregard of “flow” and linearity within the album that was one of Opeth’s most impressive characteristics. On past outings, such as My Arms Your Hearse (1998) and Deliverance (2002), the material was rife with sudden shifts in mood and dynamics, yet the transitions made sense, gravitating naturally and organically from one to the next. Watershed practically embodies the critical adage of complexity for complexity’s sake, throttling the listener through endless channels of seizure-inducing quick edits: pointless piano miniatures, power ballad strumming, masturbatory organ solos, grinding noise, or an excuse to dust off the old Mellotron. One can’t help but admire Åkerfeldt’s increasing interest in experimenting with various sounds, exotic instruments, and recording techniques over the years, but here they come across as bitty and far too self-conscious, as if he desperately wants the listener’s head to fucking explode upon hearing sudden Ligeti-like clusters of dissonance, the inexplicable chatter of restaurant patrons, or the pegs of a guitar being detuned – wait for it – while it’s being played. Yawn. Without an appropriate context, these “shocking left turns” carry the same ingenuity as a first-year composition student emptying his bag of tricks in a hopeless attempt to wow his instructors.

Considering the aforementioned loss of half of the band in recent years, my gut instinct tells me that this detour isn’t temporary. Åkerfeldt has been inching towards this sort of bombastic theatricality since the Deliverance and Damnation (2003) siblings, and honestly, it would hardly come as a surprise if the group released a purely symphonic or even opera record five years from now. Ultimately, this is about the age-old dichotomy of artistic growth vs. a fan’s selfish desire for uniformity; Opeth could release five more variations on Still Life (1999), throw in the towel, and I’d have no qualms claiming them as the finest metal act of the past century. Watershed is still better than a good 80% of the metal releases I’ve heard so far this year, but expectations are a bitch. To open a record with a quiet, almost tender acoustic duet between Åkerfelt and guest Nathalie Lorichs comes as a shock to someone intimately familiar with every note in the band’s cycle of five (arguably six) near-perfect albums of prog-metal of the highest order. I’ll always be rooting for Åkerfeldt and will continue praising his talents at every opportunity, but damned if he isn’t making me work for it, as his output becomes exponentially harder to digest with each passing album.

“Porcelain Heart” – Opeth 8:00 (Watershed, Roadrunner 2008)

Floodwatchmusic: What is the biggest misconception that people have about you?

Nico the Beast: I would say that, right now, I get molded in that class of “white rappers” trying to fit in. This is a misconception among those who first meet me. But I deal with, and have dealt with, too many dope MCs, white or black, that know me and understand that I’m just a monster MC, not just a good white rapper.

FWM: Blastmaster KRS-One said that every MC remembers the first verse that they ever wrote for the rest of their lives. Do you remember the first lines you wrote, and if so, what were they?

NB: Yes sir, I do remember my first rap. I was on some Canibus shit back in 98. I think I remember the first eight, so here they go:

Renegades of black shade persuade to invade the earth wit nuclear raids.
Bloody blades engraved with the mark of Satan’s grave behave brave.
Like slaves being whipped by forms of hate.
Insane like the pain of this rap game.
Emcees get slain from their backs up through their brain.
You heard of change of the estranged stage of the plague of human rage?

Yea, I know, kinda simple. But at fifteen and in a time where Wu-Tang and Canibus were the best thing in hip-hop – outside of Biggie, obviously – that’s the way I wrote for my first verse. I guess you can say I got worse over the years [smirks].

FWM: What is the one corny song that you feel guilty for enjoying?

NB: You know what, cuz? The one song that I felt when it dropped was that Gnarls Barkley “Crazy” joint. No guilt in saying that either – that shit was catchy. Cee-Lo’s voice is dope as hell. Plus the hook and beat is hook, line, and sinker when you put it together.

FWM: Which producer - dead or alive - would you most want to collaborate with on a full-length?

NB: Dead, the obvious answer is Dilla. End of story on that one. Alive, I’m a huge fan of Premo, Havoc, and Alchemist. As you can tell by my beat selections (mostly piano with heavy drums), dark beats with a story already to them before I even write are my cup of tea.

FWM: What is your favorite dinner that you like to serve?

NB: Well, anybody who knows me knows that I’m a husky Italian from South Philly. So my favorite meal is chicken parmigiana with some angel hair spaghetti and a good homemade meatball. In some outstanding gravy, not sauce.

FWM: If you could gain a superpower (strength, invisibility, etc), which one would it be and how would you use it?

NB: Any power? Man, I’m gonna get in trouble for this one, but fuck it – any man who says they don’t want X-ray vision is a goddamn liar [laughs]. I can be politically correct and say Spidey senses or some shit and that I would save the world. But let’s be realistic, it would take a lot more than one man with superhuman power to save this planet, feel me?

FWM: Who is your greatest influence as a lyricist?

NB: Right now, Brother Ali. Dude just has a reason to rhyme. He talks about everything, from his kid, to his personal life with his chick, to dealing with being “abnormal.” I mean, if you can’t feel what he’s saying you must be a zombie. That’s why I approach writing the same way – give people a piece of you every time you go in and they will either relate to you or not. Simple as that.

FWM: There are ten minutes left before the end of the world. What do you do in your last final moments?

NB: I spend every second with my two kids and tell them I love them, and that the final ten minutes of my life are worth more than the past 25 years because it was spent with them.

FWM: Is there a subject, for whatever reason(s), that you refuse to write about and why?

NB: No subject is untouchable, but I prefer to stray away from demeaning chicks. I also never talk about selling drugs – that is something I ain’t never done. I was around cats who did it, but to glorify something that cats do to survive is a cop out in regards to song substance. If you can paint a vivid picture of drug related events that occurred in your life, a la Jay-Z or Biggie, then that’s different. But if all you talk about is flipping coke – come on now, that’s just ridiculous.

FWM: What was the first record/cassette/CD you bought as a kid and what are your reactions to it now?

NB: I remember the first physical cassette I ever bought was Wu-Tang’s Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers (1993), hence me being a huge Wu fan. But I remember always putting my stereo on record with a Maxell tape running while the radio played new joints. I captured some good shit doing that. So most of my collection was Maxell tapes that I had made off the stereo. My reaction to it now is the same as the day I bought it: love it!

FWM: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever witnessed at a show or on tour?

NB: Well, being fresh in the pond of hip-hop, I’ve yet to dip my feet into the touring end of the pool. But as far as shows are concerned, the craziest shit I’ve ever seen was actually shit on the underside of a toilet seat. Yeah, I’ve done it in some bad places, but come on, how the fuck did it get under the lid? It was like dude was trying to make a shit sandwich with the seat bottom and the bowl. Nuts, absolutely nuts. I had to laugh, because I was baffled thinking, “How?!?”

“My Life Is Mine” – Nico the Beast 3:48 (No Beast So Fierce, Beat Garden 2008)

Rush “Vital Signs” Moving Pictures Mercury 1981

I’d like to say that “Vital Signs” represents the culmination of four weeks of intense, detailed Rush song examinations, but in all reality, it was the only track name from their ’74-’89 era that served well as a title for this site’s whole overindulgent mess of an experiment. Some would argue that the song concludes one of the group’s more mediocre second halves of a record, but while “Vital Signs” may not conform to that every-track-is-a-hit quality so characteristic of the first side of Moving Pictures (1981), it’s not without its curiosities. Lifeson takes a page (or in this case, an entire chapter) from Andy Summers’ technique and guitar tone and is oddly shoved to the far left of the stereo field, Peart uses the opportunity to try out one of his brand-new electric snare pads (his first instance, if I’m not mistaken), and Lee alternates between his choppy arpeggiated synth and an almost distorted bass, climaxing in one of his finest four-string solos on record. It’s probably most notable as the band’s first blatant flirtation with reggae, but arguably more than any other song in the group’s catalogue, “Vital Signs” hovers unsteadily between their ‘classic rock’ heritage and the electronics-dominated material of their ‘80s work. On a more personal level, the song contains my favorite of Peart’s lyrics, with lines like “Everybody need a sub-filter” and “Warm memory chip, random sample hold the one you need,” but that’s only because I’m a closet tech-geek who eats shit like that up without a trace of shame. Rush had a tendency to place a good deal of emotional emphasis on their album closers starting with 1977’s A Farewell to Kings, and “Vital Signs” follows in that tradition quite nicely.

“Vital Signs” – Rush 4:47 (Moving Pictures, Mercury 1981)

And so concludes my month-long analysis of one of the most equally revered and maligned bands of the past half-century. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried, but mostly the majority of you cried (myself included at times), which is why I can announce with pleasure and a generous heaping of relief that regular posting will resume next week. As for my collection of Rush discs, I’ll be filing them away for an extended yet undetermined length of time, so to anyone reading this, formulating that email or comment on my pedestrian interpretations of Neil Peart’s lyrics or wanting to spark discussions regarding the unrecognized brilliance of albums like Caress of Steel (1975) or Hold Your Fire (1987): I’m all set for now, thanks.

Rush “Kid Gloves” Grace Under Pressure Mercury 1984

The more I return to Grace Under Pressure (1984), the more I regret those years of ignoring it and wishing I had grabbed my copy of Signals (1982) instead during the few occurrences when it actually got play time on my stereo. If one album has retroactively benefited from this ridiculous month-long overindulgence on All Things Rush it’s this one, which I’d always unfairly considered the first installment of the band’s mid-‘80s trilogy of digital sterility, completed by Power Windows (1985) and Hold Your Fire (1987). Not that the record is without its flaws (”Red Lenses”), but tracks like “Kid Gloves” make me wonder why the hell fans were so quick to lament the loss of Lifeson’s guitar playing upon its release. From the chunky 5/4 riff he uses to introduce the song through the dense open chords during the chorus, the guitarist is ripping through the mix here with some of his most visceral playing on tape; sadly, it would be quite some time after this that we’d hear it again. Unsurprisingly, Peart’s lyrics are probably best ignored (“Then you learn the lesson that it’s tough to be so cool”), although a minor note could be added that they follow in the theme of schoolyard peer pressure introduced on Signals’ “Subdivisions” and followed by “The Pass” from Presto (1989). I never gave “Kid Gloves” the time of day when fellow Rush diehards suggested it upon my uninformed opinion that Grace Under Pressure was “the beginning of the band’s Dark Age,” but my folly will haunt me for weeks on this one. Maybe not “weeks,” but certainly for days. Hours, really. Anyone seen my copy of Signals?

Rush “Natural Science” Permanent Waves Mercury 1980

Permanent Waves’ (1980) closing opus “Natural Science” has famously topped many a Rush fan’s list of Favorite Songs Ever by the band, and upon first listen it’s not too difficult to understand why, as it presents in nine minutes the distillation of why listeners shit themselves silly at the mere mention of the Canadian power trio. Checklist, please: pastoral acoustic bits, warped riffage in odd time signatures, synthesizer parts that complement rather than dominate, instrumental showcases for each member, brief but electrifying Lifeson solos, environmentally-conscious “thinking man” lyrics, polyrhythmic drumming – I could go on for hours. I’ve probably heard this track hundreds of times over the years of my Rush appreciation, yet in researching it I discovered that it’s actually divided into three sub-sections: “Tide Pools,” “Hyperspace,” and “Permanent Waves.” Which probably means little to the novice listener but it does help to make sense of Peart’s lyrics, which somehow manage to connect the birth of the universe, the honest man’s place in the world, and Intro to Marine Science into one semi-coherent narrative, even if it borders on preachy at times. Frankly, I’d rather marvel at how the cheesy reverse-reverb and astromech-droid effects on Lee’s vocals still sound awesome, and how Peart’s muscular, almost inhuman drumming seems unstoppable at times. Critics who have commented on “Natural Science”’s seemingly awkward musical structure and non-interlocking parts obviously never reached the 7:18 mark, where the six-note motif that holds the entire song together reveals itself like the last crucial piece of the puzzle that had been missing all along. And yet another reason is uncovered as to why Permanent Waves finds itself as the Desert Island disc of choice among hardcore Rush geeks.

“Natural Science” – Rush 9:16 (Permanent Waves, Mercury 1980)