The band’s music indeed was somewhat unique for its time. In many ways the band was ahead of its time in regards to the songs they produced. Roddy Bottom’s combination of keyboards and rhythm guitar allows the band a unique switch between power and synth based rock, and combined with the hard riffing of Jim Martin’s guitar and Mike Bordin’s spectacularly off-timing drumming gives the songs that alternative feel that was ahead of its time. Add into the mix the vocals of Chuck Mosley, who gives it an added hip hop and rap flavour around the attempts to soar through other parts of the songs, and you truly have the basis of a band bringing something new to the ether. And this is perhaps one of the interesting things about this album. It IS a different style from most of the bands around at that time, and it is creating a new path in that respect. Because even though this is a better effort song-wise, and certainly better production-wise than their first album, “Introduce Yourself” is still a much maligned album in the history of Faith No More. It is rarely brought up in discussion of the best Faith No More albums. Indeed, many people still consider that Faith No More started with “The Real Thing”, and that anything that occurred before that point doesn’t really exist. And that for me does take away from the fact that they were cutting edge well before “The Real Thing” hit the shelves.
Whenever I listen to this album, I still find it comes in two sections, that the songs can be placed into two categories. There’s the slower, drawn out, slightly more reflective tones in some of the songs, and then there are the songs that just expend energy, extolling the virtues of jumping and thrashing around the room as you listen to them.
“Faster Disco” kicks things off with a great heavy beat, and is followed by “Anne’s Song” which sticks in that same tempo with Billy Gould’s funky bass the mainstay of the song. “Chinese Arithmetic” cuts in at a slower beat, building slowly into the track under the synth to the bass and drums, before the guitar and vocals hit and bring the song to life. “Death March” may be a surprising name for a song in this section in explaining the slower tempo songs, but it certainly fits, moving along in a mid-tempo dominated by Bottom’s synth and Mosley’s vocals crooning over the top. “The Crab Song” often divides opinion, given that the first half of the song is pretty much solely the domain of Mosley whining over the top of the quiet keys, before exploding in the second half with Bordin’s drums and Martin’s guitar taking over.
For me, the best song on the album is the title track, “Introduce Yourself”. It has great energy and bounce with Mosley spitting out the lyrics. I honestly can only imagine just how popular this song may have become to the masses if it wasn't for the updated and remodelled version of "We Care a Lot" that accompanies it here. “We Care a Lot” originally appeared on the debut album, and for this album it was reborn and given a few touch ups here and there before being released as the power single for the album. For the masses, it was this song that ended up becoming the crowd favourite at live performances, though for me "Introduce Yourself" could have been that song too. Don’t get me wrong, it is still popular with the fans, but not in the same way. That has always interested me. “R N’ R” is another of the songs that pumps through the speakers, especially Bordin’s drums that thump hard throughout, and the supporting vocals as well. The songs “Blood” and then “Spirit” finish off the album in a similar way to the start of the album, unique in their concept and the way they draw together those aspects of the band’s musicianship.
Whether you love Chuck Mosely, or you hate him, and opinion on him is split, the fact remains that the rest of the band was the core of the music, and their musicianship is second-to-none. The one man who stands up again here is Jim Martin, whose guitaring was possibly the forefront of the band until the scene-stealing Mike Patton showed up for the next release. Though somewhat buried by the mega-success the band experienced with their next album, “Introduce Yourself” deserves respect for paving the way for that eventual success.
I don’t know anyone who had this album when it was released. In Australia the Faith No More revolution came with the release of the following album and the huge single release of “Epic”. So, like everyone else, I discovered this album after “The Real Thing” made them huge, and as I did in those days then went searching for anything else the band had done. And as a result, like most people, there was a certain degree of disappointment in the initial listening's to this album. With Chuck Mosley installed on vocals rather than his replacement Mike Patton, there felt like a lot less energy in the singing here. And the songs didn’t feel as compelling or vibrant. But that was an unfair comparison, because “The Real Thing” was amazing, the culmination and progression from this album and a change in vocalist.
So it was important, in my mind, that this album doesn’t get judged against what was to come, because that path was also broken into many paths. And “Introduce Yourself” does require one to be in the correct mood to get the most out of it. It has a number of mid-tempo songs that are cleverly broken up by the big time harder songs in “Introduce Yourself” and “We Care a Lot” and “R N’ R”, which gives the impression that the album continues to move smoothly throughout.
So the most difficult part of listening to this album is not trying to believe you are listening to “The Real Thing” or “Angel Dust” or “King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime”, because that will destroy any chance it has. Just put it on, sit back and let the tide take you where it wants, and you can still gain a great deal of enjoyment out of this album.
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