them, validating their taste. When popular taste moves on, the fanboys follow ‘their’ band, hoping their dedication will be validated again.

 

Faith No More’s 1987 release The Real Thing validated those early adopters - even those who bought the album before the video for “Epic” aired on MTV and brought a nation into a once-exclusive fold. “Falling to Pieces” followed, and then the spotlight moved on. The band members pursued artistic integrity rather than popularity and financial success, and in that regard, they succeeded. They released several more albums before dissolving in the late 1990s to a smattering of apathy.

 

So for the minority of us who can still say “We Care A Lot,” the release of Sol Invictus brings a measure of gratitude, validation, and joy. Unless you’re the kind of person who really doesn’t care for guitar-centric music, or you’re a troll who routinely talks about Metallica and Slayer not being ‘real metal,’ Sol Invictus will have at least one song you enjoy. While The Real Thing’s signature hits featured Mike Patton’s vocals at their smoothest and most accessible, his range reaches beyond the crooning of “Falling to Pieces” or the rap-rock nu-metal precursor “Epic” to embrace a thrash snarl and deeper Iggy Pop-esque sound. “Cone of Shame” covers both ends of this spectrum - a slow start that gets aggressively louder, followed by a bridge that sounds like it was narrated by Christian Bale’s Batman because of its husky and menacing stage whisper.

 

Sol Invictus opens with a piano solo from Roddy Bottum, which simultaneously reminds those of the piano elements on The Real Thing. The sound may be produced by an electronic keyboard, but the choice seems to say “Remember that album when we were popular? Check this out.” It’s an interesting choice for a band who, while not discovered by Metallica, were championed by them in the late 1980s. In fact, Metallica played The Real Thing between sets during their tour for The Black Album.

 

“Superhero” follows, finally ramping up to the hard rock sound that was expected and anticipated by the fans. The piano theme is prevalent in this track as well. For a band that embraces chaos as much as they do, the sound is remarkably consistent within its diversity. There’s no way a Faith No More album would ever have the tonal consistency of a ZZ Top record, but there’s a certain artistic and sonic continuity running through these songs. Beyond Bottum’s keyboards, Bill Gould’s bass and John Hudson’s guitar talents play an important role. Drummer Mile Bordin drives everybody, exhibiting both pace-setting and leadership skills from beyond the drum set. “Superhero” rightly deserves its place as the vanguard single from Sol Invictus.

 

“Matador,” the song that restarted it all, opens with smooth crooning from Mike Patton and beautiful keys from Bottum. The song quickly builds to a rocking bass-fueled anthem. At a reunion concert a couple of years ago, the band played “Matador” and received such enthusiastic reception that the members knew they had to put together a new album. It’s obvious why the song received such enthusiasm - it has all the classic Faith No More elements: silky vocals, killer guitar riffs, powerful bass, piano, tempo changes, and interesting, yet somewhat disconnected lyrics.

 

Just before “Matador” is “Motherfucker,” a song that would certainly have led to a parental advisory sticker if those mattered anymore. “Motherfucker” seems to be as much about the song’s excessively visual and visceral poetry as it is about gleefully using the title as much as possible. Not since Limp Bizkit’s “Hot Dog” has a tuned embrace such sheer obnoxious levels of profanity.

 

As an album name, Sol Invictus hits the right notes for the FNM faithful. Latin for “the unconquered sun,” Sol Invictus is a reference to a pre-Constantinian development in Roman religion that emphasized worship of the god Sol Invictus over other gods in the pantheon. As a symbol of the band’s reunion and what they’ve crafted in this space, the “unconquered sun” fits perfectly. The quintet have created a terrific mix of the elements that made them great and demonstrated why they will have this greatness for a long time. This is not a tribute album to themselves; rather, a starting point for a revival which will hopefully continue into the foreseeable future.

 

The people who greeted Faith No More’s announcement that stated they were releasing their first new album in over a decade are the people that fall between the spectrum of hipster douchebag and casual listener: the fanboy geek. The typical hipster enjoys music you’ve never heard of and sniffs derisively when that music becomes popular; after all, they were fans first, but now they’re not special. Casual fans enjoy whatever radio DJs or Spotify suggests for them, and they quickly move on. The fanboy geek that Faith No More attracts enjoys finding new music as much as the hipster, but glows with joy when the rest of the world catches up to