Faith No More - Album of the Year

Faith No More were an influential band of my young adult life. However most of their music was made whilst i will still in high school, and when 'Epic' was release in 1989 i was still listening to Prince and Billy Joel ( that's a story for another time ) 95's 'King for a day' was my introduction to them, and as it was more of a rock album than their previous experimental funk and hardcore albums I found it instantly accessible. The follow up 'Album of the Year' had some of that same familiar FNM sound but with some subtle electronic inclusions, and some softer more mellow tunes than had been tried before. This turned out to be the last FNM album as the band split not long after. Lyrically the songs themselves show the signs of a band that was stuck in a rut and couldn't make the album that they wanted to make. The second single "Last cup of sorrow" suggests that Patten himself had had enough of FNM's dark aggressive rambling as he seems to tell the listener that it's time to move on. "this is getting old and so are you" and "it's your last cup of sorrow, what can you say, finish it today". In 'Ashes to Ashes' he seemingly assumes full responsibility for the bands breakdown in communication; "i want them to know it's me, it's on my head". FNM weren't happy with the release and gave it the ironic title of "Album of the Year". That's not to say it's a bad album though, there are some great tracks, i challenge anyone to write a better song that 'Stripsearch', it's just not what the band wanted to do and hence they gave the game away. I just heard recently though that they are reforming for some festivals this year, whether they will play anything off this record though is yet to be determined.