Introduce Yourself Birmingham AL

Introduce Yourself

Faith No More

Slash Records, 1987

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/13/1997

Faith No More is a prime example of a band who achieve successwith one song, and that is all that people know (or want to know)about them. Had it not been for "Epic" off their second major labelrelease The Real Thing, this band would probably still belanguishing on college radio.

My discovery of Faith No More was not with "Epic," it was withtheir 1987 release Introduce Yourself, and the title couldn't have been bothbetter and worse. It barely gave us time to get to know originalsinger Chuck Mosely, and in retrospect, this may not have been sobad. But it also gave the world its first real taste of the band,and showed us they ran both hot and cold on vinyl.

The album opens up strongly enough with "Faster Disco," andimmediately you're struck by the fact the band doesn't seem toquite know what it wanted to be. They could be a decent hard rockband with the guitar work of Jim Martin (who I still miss), theycould have been a funk band courtesy of the bass riffings of BillGould... hell, with Mosely's often off-key warblings, they couldhave been a rap band a la Body Count. (For that matter, I still don't think Faith No More knows what kind of a bandthey want to be.) But "Faster Disco" is a great opening shot, andleaves the listener looking forward to what the rest of the albumhas to offer.

Too bad the very next effort, "Anne's Song," is a major stepbackwards. The first portion of the song is a positive enoughmessage, though musically it is a weak vehicle with which it isdelivered. And the rundown of friends arriving for some event isjust tedious. Fortunately, the furious two minute blast of thetitle track saves face.