Faith No More – Sol Invictus
Hell-bent on reaching higher than before (rather than pissing on their life’s work), trust these perennial non-conformists to creep back in to the fray with a lofty album title that conjures the same smirking self-awareness that always made them dangerous. “We’ve served you well, now we’re comin’ back,” Mike Patton rasps on the ecstatic Matador, essentially levitating out of the coffin in his white suit to ride the clichés of renewal, pulling it off more convincingly than most.
Faith No More's self-proclaimed “Second Coming” is given weight by Sol Invictus – “The Unconquered Sun” – a 40 minute trip driven by charisma, invention and Patton’s characteristic tracheal terrorism. Close your eyes and stick pins in the tracklist for highlights; Superhero stumbles through the door like a demented sequel to Epic, their age-old hit, while Separation Anxiety is a convincing update on the sort of juddering thrash-funk they made their own with Angel Dust. Passionate, hungry and still hearteningly uncompromising; this is the real thing.