roddy bottum

Here’s our round-up of what’s been happening over the past few days while the rest of the music media have been belatedly catching up with the Faith No More Foo Fighter’s snippet.

Superhero number 2 in What Culture list

The list in question is their 10 Best Hard Rock And Heavy Metal Songs Of 2015 (So Far) rundown and Superhero comes in at number 2. Here is some of what they say:

“One of the most mature and meticulously stitched together hard rock songs of the year for a band whose iconic status has only been extended further with the genre defying Sol Invictus.”

Sol Invictus in Rolling Stone album of the year list

Another list.  Rolling Stone has published its clickbaitish albums of the year so far list – in June. They say: “It’s nearly half over, but the year of the dueling streaming services has already given us plenty of reasons to press play. Mumford went electric, Dylan went Rat Pack and Mark Ronson went to the top of the charts. D’Angelo made a huge impact on 2015 with his bold return (after 14 years without a new album), which was followed by comeback LPs from Faith No More (after 18 years) and the Sonics (49 years). And of course there has been no shortage of newcomers — indie wordsmith Courtney Barnett, hip-hop’s giddy Rae Sremmurd, high-concept dance crew Future Brown — turned heads as well. Here’s the best of 2015’s first six months.”
And on Sol Invictus, they re-iterate:

“Sol Invictus, the band’s first record since 1997’s underrated Album of the Year, offers newer, better versions of Faith No More’s formula: spaghetti-Western guitars (“Cone of Shame”), proggy keyboard drama (“Matador”) and tons of vocal contortions from lead singer Mike Patton (“Rise of the Fall”).”

Insightful Niccolò Antonietti interview

If you have been at any of the Faith No More shows this summer, chances are you will have spotted among the white-clad crew bearded monitoring engineer Niccolò Antonietti. He has given an insightful interview to ZioGiorgio, which gives a look behind the scenes on the technical aspects of putting together the Faith No More live experience.

Here are some choice cuts:

“I had the chance to work as monitor engineer for Mike Patton’s parallel project “Mondo Cane”. I must have done a good job because after the concert Mike Patton asked me if I wanted to work with them till the end of the tour as their official monitor engineer. From then on it was like a snowball effect. Mike Patton asked me to work with Faith No More and then with Tomahawk, and then, with the help of their sound engineer, I also started to work with Primal Scream. I then decided to move across to London and work here.”

“We did “Download” in Donington (UK) last week, where we had only half an hour for stage changeover, with 10 minutes taken up to changeover from the previous group. This year we had a completely white stage, including white carpeting, so another ten minutes were for stage set-up, and so in the remaining ten minutes you need people on the stage that know what they’re doing.”

Yoga and the No Worries hotel in Finland

Mike P and Roddy lead the crowd in some yoga instruction and arrange a date at the No Worries hotel at Provinssirock.

Burton snowboard winners

The winners of those wonderful Burton Faith No More snowboards met the band in Sweden at the weekend. Anneli Grotterød, Steve Murphy and Felix Seifert were the winners.

Read more here (via @mariadollyfnm)

Refused hitch a ride

As reported by UpRoxx and elsewhere, Faith No More offered a plane ride to reunited Swedish punks The Refused to Provinssirock.

So we had a grueling day of traveling ahead of us until the beautiful gentlemen of Faith No More found out about it and made room on their charted plane for us: band, crew, gear and all. Well-rested and touched by the kindness, the crowd at Provinssi will benefit from us not traveling 10 hours today. Some bands are just the real deal. They actually DO care a lot. Love and respect. Spirit and excellence. #faithnomore #pillsforbreakfast #crackhitler

A photo posted by REFUSED (@refusedfreedom) on Jun 27, 2015 at 7:13am PDT

Late, late Antiquiet Sol Invictus review

There is a lot to be said in this age of immediate gratification and instant evaluation to let an album soak in and wash over you and I’ll assume that’s why Antiquiet have waited about six weeks before passing judgement on Sol Invictus.The review is worth waiting for as they say:
“I won’t go into any trite soapboxing about whether or not this is an acceptable “comeback album” or what Faith No More may or may not have had to prove to anyone, whether they did or did not succeed in doing so, or any of all that obvious blogger bullshit. But what I do feel is safe to say, and re-affirmed by this album, is that Faith No More is still very much a force to be reckoned with, and one of the most powerful bands still working.”