Angel Dust is the fourth studio album by American rock band Faith No More, released on June 8, 1992, by Slash and Reprise Records.

It is the follow-up to 1989's highly successful The Real Thing, and was the band's final album to feature guitarist Jim Martin.

Following the success of their previous album The Real Thing and its subsequent tour, Faith No More took a break for a year and a half before beginning work on the follow-up, Angel Dust.

[17] Both bassist Billy Gould and Mike Bordin said that the image on the rear of the album is not based on support for vegetarianism but rather a preview of the music, suggesting its combination of being "really aggressive and disturbing and then really soothing", the "beautiful with the sick".

[12][17] The photo of a group of Russian soldiers with the band members' faces inserted was edited by Werner Krutein and used as the cover of the "Midlife Crisis" single.

"[7] In a trend that started when then-vocalist Chuck Mosley lived in Los Angeles while the rest of the band resided in the Bay Area, the band would record demo tapes of the songs and exchange them between each other in Los Angeles before sending them to Jim Martin so that he could work on his guitar arrangements, after which he would send them back for approval.

[19] Album producer Matt Wallace stated there was a great deal of tension between Jim Martin and the rest of the band that made the recording sessions difficult.

He got his inspiration for the lyrics from many different places such as questions from the Oxford Capacity Analysis, fortune cookies and late-night television.

He said in December 1992 that "what I like about 'Be Aggressive' is that even though it's macho in a homosexual way, lots of FNM listeners probably imagine that it is a woman who is getting down on her knees and swallowing rather than a man.

[1][10] At that time, the final song titles had not been chosen so they were often referred to by the following working titles, some of which continued to be used internally by the band, including on their live set lists: While 13 tracks were released on the standard album, the sessions also produced a cover of the Commodores' "Easy", a reworking of the previously recorded "As the Worm Turns", and a song called "The World Is Yours".

In 1992-93, "Easy" and the re-recorded version of "As the Worm Turns" were both included on certain editions of Angel Dust, in addition to appearing on other releases such as EPs and singles.

While the songs "Das Schutzenfest" and the Dead Kennedys cover "Let's Lynch the Landlord" were both released along with "Easy" on an EP in late 1992, at least one of these songs was not actually recorded during the Angel Dust sessions: "Let's Lynch the Landlord" was recorded in Bill Gould's bedroom[31] and produced by the band,[32] prior to the Angel Dust sessions, for Virus 100, a Dead Kennedys tribute album.

When the album was being written in 1991, the band went on a month-long tour of Argentina, Brazil and Japan,[33] where they debuted early versions of "The World Is Yours," "RV," and "Caffeine".

The first performances of "The World Is Yours" and "RV" came during an August 31, 1991 concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the two songs would go on to be played several more times during the mini-tour, with "Caffeine" added during the tour.

[37] Also, a brief succession of sounds, including a police car siren and a warp noise, similar to what Frank Zappa abundantly made use of on his album Joe's Garage is recognizable in the song "A Small Victory".

These chants were made specifically for the album, rather than being samples, and featured four 15 to 17 year old cheerleaders (who performed the song live with the band in 1992).

[41] In an interview taken on June 6, 1992, Billy said: This is really just the beginning for us, Last time we toured, with The Real Thing, I left home at the age of 26 and got back when I was 28.

[17]They continued on this tour through the North America leg with Guns N' Roses and Metallica[40] before splitting off on their own European tour through Finland, Sweden,[42] Denmark, Norway, seven performances from November 4–11 in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, 3 more performances in Germany, Belgium, Germany again, the Netherlands, Wales, England, where they played at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on November 23 then three nights straight at the Brixton Academy from November 25–27 and on the following night at the NEC Arena in Birmingham before going through Ireland,[43] Scotland, where they played the first 4 nights of December in the Barrowland Ballroom before going back through England, Belgium, 3 performances from the December 8–10 in France, 3 performances from the December 12–14 in Spain, France again, Italy, Switzerland and Austria again before having a break for Christmas and New Year.

[47] Following the performances in these countries, the band was going to tour Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia in mid-May 1993, but cancelled these planned shows and instead did another three concerts on New Zealand's South Island.

[52] The band had planned to tour Peru, Brazil and Venezuela in August 1993,[53] but these dates were cancelled due to issues with Jim Martin.

"[3] During the tour, the band covered snippets of various songs, including "Free Your Mind" by En Vogue, "The Goin' Gets Tough From the Getgo" by Ween, "Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane, "Mistadobalina" by Del tha Funky Homosapien, "Warm It Up" by Kris Kross and "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

[57][58][59] Patton would later do a full cover of "Under the Bridge" with his other band Mr. Bungle, as part of a 1999 Halloween concert parodying the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

[72] The single "A Small Victory" is described as a song "which seems to run Madame Butterfly through Metallica and Nile Rodgers, reveals a developing facility for combining unlikely elements into startlingly original concoctions".

[73] The songs "Malpractice" and "Jizzlobber" have been called "art-damaged death metal" and "nerve-frazzling apocalyptic rock" by contrast with the "accordion-propelled" Midnight Cowboy theme cover that follows.

[78] In a 2018 Louder Sound article, Hoobastank singer Doug Robb listed it as one of the ten albums that changed his life.

[81] In March 2023, Rolling Stone ranked the album's second track, "Caffeine", at number 55 on their "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs of All Time" list.

[82] Alex Tefler of The Philadelphia Inquirer refers to Angel Dust as "one of the most deliriously strange records ever to appear on a major label.

"[83] All lyrics are written by Mike Patton, except where notedThere were several different bonus discs released with various editions and formats of the album.

This disc came with the third and fourth pressings of the Australian release, it contains four tracks labeled to be from a free concert at Munich, Germany on November 9, 1992.

On the back it reads "ne peut être vendu séparément, offert avec l'album 'Angel Dust' dans la limite des stocks disponibles",[84] which translates to "offered with the album Angel Dust while stocks last, not to be sold separately" This disc was released with limited edition UK LPs as a double vinyl pack.