Written by Jason Gottfried
Faith No More: “Sol Invictus”
For everyone who wanted to see their dad dress up Guns N’ Roses’ bassist Duff McKagan in a gimp suit, put him on a leash, and parade him around prior to an onslaught of over-the-hill-defying asskicking—but never got to—there’s Faith No More, circa 2015. I mean, what are you going to do when you’re 50 years old? Try to remember to take your statin pills and Metamucil?
Well, it’s irrelevant. Even in an age where nothing in the pop art world (poop art world?), from TV to movies to music, is new and when the bland rehashing of some decades-old franchise is only topped by perhaps another interpretation of the same tired themes with a new face, no one saw “Sol Invictus” coming.
Sure, Faith No More started playing shows again in 2009, and sure, they’re still killing it. But as countless comeback attempts by various bands over the years have demonstrated, grabbing your crutches and wheelchairs and revisiting old tunes—even with the amps turned to 11—just isn’t the same as releasing new material; the stakes are way higher. Walking the tightrope of being true to one’s roots without sounding dated or clichéd (or just pathetic) is a precarious feat, and as Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum told The Star, “People expect any new album to suck, and I get it. Chances are it would suck.” And with a portfolio like theirs (they already released “Album of the Year,” and how is it possible to one-up “Epic”? For Cthulhu’s sake, it’s even called “Epic”), it would seem that Faith No More’s personal Mt. Everest has been climbed already.
So to hell with it. Faith No More built their own damned mountain, and the self-admittedly weird San Francisco quintet who brought us nu-metal is back with “Sol Invictus,” curb-stomping American society-at-large as usual.
The title track opens darkly with piano, over which Patton all but grumbles menacingly about the folly of religion, “empty rituals, trinkets and fossils.” The song doesn’t peak so much as lurk, as if to ease the audience in gently rather than immediately smash in their two front teeth.
The distorted growl of heavy power chords opens “Superhero,” which is when the screaming begins. The theme is leadership vs. power, with an implicit condemnation of military force, particularly in America, labeling power as “an American drug.” Patton rightly alludes to the insane, power-drunk Emperor Nero, issuing the command, “Leader of men / get back in your cage,” as well as poking fun at the delusion of revisionist history: “Its all erased / Storybook years / Sweet memories.” Of course, it wouldn’t be Faith No More without a healthy sprinkling of gothic piano melodies.
At first listen, “Sunny Side Up” seems to be an homage to an unhealthy breakfast but upon closer inspection proves to be a dark but ironically silly love song, although it’s unclear whether it’s dedicated to a mortal female or to Apollo himself.
As if to remind you that they are a “metal band,” “Separation Anxiety” steps in with the bass in a driving, muted moto perpetuo. Patton’s vocals are so clean, and so much has happened over the past 18 years (since “Album of the Year”), that younger listeners are likely to think the chorus is spliced from some lost Incubus track.
In the same vein, “Cone of Shame” is an anti-love song. Patton is absolutely at his narrative best here: from leathery, almost slimy guttural utterances to a full-diaphragm screamo, his six-octave voice is both theatrical and demonic, giving both frontmen and voice actors everywhere good reason to feel inferior.
“Rise of the Fall” is perhaps a chink in the armor: it’s stylistically bizarre, with accordion, castanets, and quasi-surf rock licks enigmatically punctuating a more typically heavy chorus. However, once the chorus does come to a full boil, it is a dystopian, testosterone-churning romp, with issuances like “Beg for law / With a crying jaw / Like a jungle in flames” and “Smell your filthy life / Burning!”
Fortunately, “Black Friday” breaks the door down, pointing a finger in the face of society and corporate America and asking why they have joined hands to create such a shameful debacle out of the two-month disaster fondly referred to as “the Holiday Season”: “It’s a riot at the salad bar / Predatory lenders / Safari mission is far but you paid for them / To kill your mom.” Screw the Justin Bieber Christmas album; buy “Sol Invictus” for the grandparents.
Hilariously, the radio-unfriendly “Motherfucker” is being released as a single. What seems like shock-value word choice is actually a justified poetic decision—albeit a brazenly bicep-flexing one—directly in line with the album’s harsh critique of the status quo. Much of the song is rapped, and if there is a complementary follow-up, stylistically, to “Epic,” this is it.
“Matador” is artistically a photo negative from Blues Traveler’s “All Hail the Matador,” the official theme song of the slack-jawed yokel. Unlike John Popper’s juvenile adoration of violence and animal abuse, “Matador” implicitly condemns a gleefully violent culture of alleged matadors, “rising from the killing floor.” With the grandeur of classic Queensrÿche, Patton cries, “May the dead live,” and the tone suggests that the second coming will be more of a reckoning for those alive than those who have passed. As far as art metal is concerned, “Matador” stands tall, not only with the rest of Faith No More’s oeuvre but in the overall history of politically-charged metal.
Finally, “From the Dead” opens oddly saccharine and triumphant, but it’s appropriate for the subject matter: the sarcastic mockery of a religious-right-fueled pseudo-jihadist mentality. Chimes ring as Patton intones, “We’ve been turning mysteries to nursery rhymes,” inserting a spoken (and stinging) “Welcome home, my friend.”
At about 40 minutes, “Sol Invictus” is intense but brief. It’s not some insane prog-metal opus. It is generally dark—particularly lyrically—but not overbearingly so and not in the sense of “Aw man, look how dark we’re being.” Rather, it’s a simultaneously mature yet somehow consistent release, and considering the nigh 20-year stretch between this album and the last, that’s quite an accomplishment. Unlike so many of their comeback peers, Faith No More does not fall back on technological innovation or kitschy production trends, nor do they rest an their laurels. Rather, they throw the Viagra in the toilet, kick the pharmacist’s ass, and burn down the building. Just because they can.
