Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach: why I love Angel Dust by Faith No More

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By ( Metal Hammer ) published

“It changed everything for people of my generation”: Jesse Leach salutes Faith No More’s iconic 1992 album Angel Dust

(Image credit: Jesse Leach: Justin Borucki/London Records)

Jesse Leach was in his early teens when he heard Faith No More’s genre-shattering fourth album Angel Dust. Here, the Killswitch Engage singer looks back on one of the most iconic - and challenging – albums of the early 90s.

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“Angel Dust is still one of the most diverse metal/rock records you’ll ever hear. It pushed the boundaries of what you can do with a voice. Mike Patton had done it on previous records of course, but that’s the one that offered so much creativity to how a song could be written and what you could do with a voice.

<p>“I first heard it when I was just into High School. I just couldn’t get enough – I memorised all the lyrics, used to sing it with my friends. It changed my life and the way I saw music – it made me excited to try new things as a musician. As a hardcore punk all I did was scream, but this is the first band that made me want to sing, and figure out how I was gonna do that. <p>“It changed everything – especially for people of my generation. If you drop Mike Patton’s name to any musician, it doesn’t matter if they’re a fan or not, they just have to respect the man, and that’s all due to <em>Angel Dust. You get the Mr. Bungle fans of course, but to me it doesn’t touch <em>Angel Dust – it’s by far their superior work instrumentally and vocally.” <p><strong>Buy <a href="https://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?tsid=38569&GR_URL=https%3A%2F%2Famazon.co.uk%2Fdp%2FB00Y3RLXV6%2F%3Ftag%3Dhawk-future-21%26ascsubtag%3Dhawk-custom-tracking-21" target="_blank"><em><strong>Angel Dust<strong> on vinyl from Amazon