The 18-year wait was worth it...
Faith No More, the band co-founded by drummer Mike 'Puffy' Bordin in San Francisco in the early 1980s regrouped in 2009 and toured extensively, and now finally here is their first recorded output in 18 years. Bordin and bass partner Billy Gould secretly set up in a small studio with Gould as engineer and began laying down the all-important rhythmic backbone to Sol Invíctus. Freed of the pressures of expectation (see our or industry pressure, they along with frontman Mike Patton, keyboardist Roddy Bottum and guitarist Jon Hudson have come up with their best work since 1992's Angel Dust.
with the same rhythmic intensity, epic metal guitar and sweeping keys that characterised their previous work yet leaves room for genre-confounding eclecticism. Sol Invictus should please both long-time fans and win them new ones. 'Superhero' with its heavy riffs and piano hooks, is a stand-out first single, while Mike Patton's acrobatic vocal facility runs the gamut on the likes of 'Sunny Side Up'and 'Rise Of The Fall' the latter with a nice bit of reggae cross-stick from Bordin. whose military snare cadences define 'Motherfucker' and album closer 'From The Dead' 'Matador' builds brilliantly, with Bordin's tribal-stylings and
hard-hitting power driving the customary epic-ness. 'Cone Of Shame' is doomy but rich in rhythmic texture and colour; on 'Black Friday' Bordin frames Patton's ode to consumerist
greed with a swinging syncopation. Sol Invictus is a nicely balanced FNM album that proves the band can still deliver with style, and still sound like no one else.
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