Jim Martin’s Milk And Blood 06 October 1997
Faith No More played their final show with Jim Martin at the Phoenix Festival on July 17, 1993. A few months later, after an increasingly frosty relationship with the rest of the band and several failed attempts to actually get hold of him , Martin was given the boot by fax.
By January 1994, Jim was telling Kerrang! his side of the story. “Faith No More, as you know it, is no longer,” he declared, insisting that their musical differences had always been an integral part of the band.
While Faith No More were getting Dean Menta up to speed, their second guitar played since Jim, Big Sick And Ugly Martin was already plotting his comeback. Demos were recorded at Jason Newsted’s home studio before Jim unveiled his new outfit in October 1994, initially dubbed the gloriously ridiculous Dick Picklefist Orchestra. A name change followed, then another, before they finally settled on The Behemoth.
After a handful of US shows, a UK tour sponsored by Kerrang! was planned. Jim clearly knew what he was letting himself in for, noting that British crowds were rather fond of “having a few pints and shouting at the band that they’re fat bastards!”
Sadly, the tour never happened. Legal complications arose because another band, Poland’s rising extreme-metal monsters Behemoth, already had dibs on the name. So the project continued under his own name.
The resulting album, Milk And Blood, finally arrived through Steamhammer on October 6, 1997. Twelve tracks of chunky, riff-heavy weirdness included a cover of The Pogues’ Navigator and a re-recording of Faith No More’s Surprise! You’re Dead.
Martin finally hit the UK stage that same month, although anyone expecting the glorious insanity of Faith No More was in for a rude awakening. Kerrang!, who had previously been so supportive, summed it up rather brutally: the riffs were there, but the eccentric Patton-era magic was missing - and Martin’s decision to handle vocals himself was described as about as sensible as asking a goldfish to front a metal band.
And then, almost predictably, Jim disappeared again.
For years he existed largely as a rumour, a bearded apparition occasionally emerging from the wilderness, before finally returning to the live stage with Infectious Grooves in 2013.
Kerrang 1997 | JIM MARTIN Milk And Blood | DAVE EVERLEY
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IT'S BEEN a long, long wait. Three years, in fact, since James B Martin - Big, Sick, Ugly guitar behemoth and fabulous furry freak brother numero uno - lost the faith and left the platinum pastures of his former band for less suffocating climes.
'Milk And Blood' is Martin's first album since he was ousted from Faith No More at the tail-end of 1993. Big and stubborn, resolutely grouchy and absolutely insistent on going its own way, this is Jim Martin set to music.
The first thing you notice is Jimbo's voice. It rasps, rumbles, whoops, screeches, and sounds just like you'd think the voice of a man with that sort of beard would sound. The second thing you notice is that guitar. Crashing across songs like Godzilla through downtown Tokyo, it tramples verses and reduces choruses to rubble. In Jim Martin's hands, the Flying V isn't so much an instrument as a hundred tons of TNT waiting for a detonator.
‘Milk And Blood' is an album that stops for no one. 'Disco Dust' throbs and thrashes around a riff that whomps straight for the solar plexus and doesn't quit until you crash to your knees. The seven-minute 'Loser' stumbles from tottering feeb-rock to bloodshot roar in a heartbeat. 'Fatso's World' - co-written and sung by Metallica's Jason Newsted - is a crank-metal meltdown that sees two grown men playing dumb while the rest of the world looks on bemused.
The downside is a dead-end romp through The Pogues' 'Navigator', and a pointless dig at his erstwhile mates via a 'cover' of FNM’s
'Surprise! You're Dead', which is funny for about three seconds until you realise that the original sounded a dozen times better. But then he goes all ethereal on us with eight minutes of bonged-out ambience entitled 'Around The Sun' and all is right with the world once more.
'Milk And Blood' is no 'Real Thing'. It's not even an ‘Angel Dust'. But it's better than 'King For A Day...' and at least as good as ‘Album Of The Year'. Revenge doesn't come much sweeter than this.
Fact File
FORMED: Martin was given the push from Faith No More in 1993.
PREVIOUS LPS: None as a solo artist, four with FNM.
BIGGEST HIT: None.
CURRENT LINE-UP:
Martin (vocals/guitar), Brent Weeks (bass), Joe Cabral (drums), plus an appearance from Metallica's Jason Newsted.
STUDIO VIBE: Lazy - the album took three years to record.
COVER ARTWORK FOR LP: Hundreds of shop window dummies floating, over the surface of a red planet.
SUBJECT MATTER FOR LP: All manner of Martin-esque weirdness.
NEXT MOVE: Martin is playing the Camden Underworld on October 17.
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