Customer Reviews

Faith

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have every Cure album. I love this album, and "Pornography", because they are (to me) The Cure's two "trance" albums (for want of better words), they distort the room's ambience and twist your head. Both Faith and Pornography are best appreciated by lying down on the floor with your eyes closed and head between the stereo's speakers. Just lie still and let Faith's reverbing emptiness slowly descend and wash over you and it will put you into it's trance. You'll progress effortlessly through these moody tracks, rolling along with the momentum of "Primary", soaking up Smith's disturbed ambience in "The Holy Hour"... and by the time you get through "All Cat's Are Grey" and "The Funeral Party" it will have meditated within you a listless futile vulnerable feeling. There's a manically hostile detour with "Doubt", and then slowly the mood decends more and more into a cerebral despair - the utter melancholy of "The Drowning Man", symbolic of the whole Faith experience, spartan disjointed and spooky riffs which accompany Robert Smith's desperate "drowning" voice, blurring into the final track "Faith" where he finally declares his absolute despair. Remember this is 1981, the height of New Wave synthesizer pop - The Cure managed to perfect a balance with the new electronic sounds, not abusing it, just skilfully crafting this trademark sombre mood. There's lots of stand outs (tracks like "Other Voices", "Doubt", "Primary", etc) but I prefer to take this album as one continuous 'thing', from start to finish, the sum being more powerful for me than the parts. A masterpiece of "mood engineering".

I can't listen to this record too much because it requires a great deal from the listener, and at the wrong moments can almost be painful. Inevitably throughout the course of a listen to Faith I will get that hollow distant feeling in the pit of my stomach, that raw ache that people like Camus and Sartre were so keen on. Very few records still have that sort of impact after repeated listens, particular as many repeated listens as this ones gotten from me. The album is bleak and sparse, alternating from jagged, angular bass guitar duets like primary to the surreal synthetic and electric soundscapes of all cats are grey. It requires a listener's patience and a willingness to be taken into it's realm. The songs are long, and many of them ignore traditional song forms completely, eschewing such limiting devices as verses choruses and refrains. In my opinion this is The Cure's most fully realized work, and while their song craft has taken them in many different directions since the early eighties when this came out, when people talk about the Cure, the album that comes into my mind is their third release, Faith. It's so agonizingly gorgeous, everyone should hear it at least twice.

I picked this album and 17Seconds up on a rainy grey Saturday. I played the disk while I was doing errands around the apt. "All Cats are Grey" came on and I had to sit down. The piano at the end of that track still rings in my head. "Two pale figures ache in silence... timeless in the quiet ground... side by side in age and sadness"... Funeral Party. I had never heard anything like this before. At the time I had several Cure disks (late 80s), but I had never heard their early stuff. I ended up listening to it at least a dozen times that day. I don't think any music will ever impact me the way this disk has.....

Strangely enough I seem to prefer 'Faith' to 'Pornography' although I adore both. 'Faith' is one of the last albums I got from The Cure when I discovered them and started to buy everything I found on them. My first listen was inconclusive, but after many times I was hooked. My favourite songs are 'All Cats Are Grey', 'The Funeral Party', 'The Drowning Man' and 'Faith', the last one being one of Robert Smith's favourite also musically. I would call it a beautiful dark album. It's the first Cure album that has depressing lyrics, still wonderful lyrics, and 'Pornography' would follow with even more angst and sadness. Try this at home, lay on your bed at night and put on your stereo *not too loud* 'All Cats Are Grey' and just close your eyes. This is such a relaxing and moving experience for me.
You won't be disappointed if you buy this believe me!!

So, my Cure Trilogy starts with Seventeen Seconds and as the last drum beat of the song "seventeen Seconds" slows to a halt as if stopping time itself - I throw on "Faith" and let the opening bass lead me deeper into dark territory. So begins the "Holy Hour" - but this is not a man proclaiming his faith to any god, Robert has said that this album does not pertain to religion - which is fitting, considering he is an Existentialist. No, this beginning is a "holy" hour, only in that it is the hour where truths be told, clarity be seen, much of a state like a religious, or holy, experience might enduce. This is no moment of bliss, and it sure isn't enlightenment. This song, and the others that follow are great, poetic songs that send you into a dream like no other. The seamless flow of tracks is astonishing and mesmerizing, revealing anguish, paranoia, helplessness, and fear - and it has never been done more effectively, or beautifully, as it is done on this album.

Robert Smith has expressed his appreciation for the music of Joy Division and I would say that this album, "Faith", is The Cure's "Closer" - dark, monotone, toy drumming with layers of anguish and compelling lyrics. "The Funeral Party" is like Joy Division's "Eternal" - dealing with loss in an effective, but original way. I compare The Cure's "Faith" album to Joy Division's "Closer", only to express how well I feel Robert Smith managed to make an effective album - this is original, unique music and it reaches a beauty that is unmatched by many.

In all of "Faith's" misery and anguish - it is highly peaceful and beautiful. That is its charm and lasting appeal. I could sleep to this music as well as I could revel in anger or frustration. It is layered and poetic enough to remian totally abstract - yet personal enough to identify - even if just by the music alone. Robert Smith knows what it is to drown in emotional turmoil and this album proves it.

From ambient-like trance of "All Cats are Grey" - to thundering frustration and anger of "Doubt" - to the epic ending title song... this is a trip that is not one to miss. It is the 2nd album in my "Cure Trilogy" - followed by the album "Pornography". When you hear the last straining, fading voice of Robert Smith singing "nothing left but faith" for the last time, it is almost a necessity to throw on "Pornography" and let the opening tribal drum beat push you over the edge completely.

Released in 1981, Faith is the most sparse work of Robert Smith's career. It contains a kernel of the lush atmospherics that dominated the following year's Pornography and were perfected with Disintegration in 1989, but the real beauty of this record is the spaces that aren't filled. Faith also marks a lyrical turning point for the band - from the punked-out mise-en-scene of Seventeen Seconds and Boys Don't Cry (Camus references, water dripping out of taps, etc...) to the empty-inside mope rock that went on to fill the margins of high school notebooks for a decade. I'm rarely in the mood for this record, but it's a beauty.

The cover says it all - mysterious, atmospheric, eerie and somber. And it's just wonderful - it's the perfect album for a dark room or a foggy evening. Six of the eight tracks are slow and spare, with spacious, minimialistic arrangements, metronomic drumming, and evocative, melancholic lyrics, and the other two uptempo songs include the brilliant single "Primary".

"All Cats Are Grey" is probably the standout of the album - quiet and moody, and only has one short verse and chorus over almost 5 1/2 minutes of music (which ends with a lone piano plunking out a descending progression of single notes). "The Funeral Party" is in many ways the archetypal, definitive Cure song. The lyrics are over-the-top in their sorrowfullness ("Memories of childrens' dreams lie lifeless, fading, lifeless") accompanied by a slow, plodding beat and a wash of synthesizers. It fades into "Doubt" (the other uptempo song), which kicks in abruptly and jarringly. The other tracks - "The Holy Hour", "Other Voices", "The Drowning Man" and the title track - are excellent, atmospheric songs as well.

All in all, this album is one of The Cure's finest efforts, and has ended up being one of my favorite Cure albums. Believe me, it will grow on you.

Part II of the unofficial trilogy that begun with 17 seconds and ends with pornography.When listened to in order, you hear the deconstruction of the cure's sound and move towards a sparse landscape throughout 17 seconds, and faith moves to a fuller tone that is at times etheral.The cover's dreary, undefined hue is congruent to the emotion expressed on most of the eight trks. This journey climaxes with th rage,regret,and resentful despair spilled out on pornography.The first trk.(the holy hour)opens with the faraway rings of cathedral bells,somber bass strumming, and a voice on the edge of tears.Primary,1 of 2 up-tempo trks, finds smith spewing vocals cloaked in insoucinace, and a sing-song chorus evoking images of children at recess. Other voice's marching drums,and echo tinged vocals have the feel of a vague dream,and features the lyric that simply conveys a sense of alienation;"I live with desertion...and 8 million people".All cats are grey is the perfect soft lull to precede the funeral party,which marries mournful vocals to morbidly serene music. The 6th trk.(doubt) is the 2nd up-tempo # which has the vocal pacings of earlier songs like so what,and grinding halt.The drowning man has smith's vocals submerge and surface steadily in the tide of music as faint rhytmic claps splash throughout the background.The title trk. has a long intro which effectively establishes the mood needed to accomodate smith's pensive vocals."There's nothing left but faith",is repeated several times,making it sound less like a stated fact,but as if everything tangible is gone,and he must convince himself that he has at least something to cling to. Faith is a good album,but is better when heard in the context of a triumvirate,nestled between 17 seconds and pornography.Reading the liner notes you'll notice that smith's last listed credit is "voice".This is a subtle element,perhaps serendipitous,that gives you the feeling that the vocals are the words of a disembodied apparition.

'Faith' is an album that smells of bleak churchyards under lead-coloured skies in the dead of winter; lonely grey swells of sound that break you apart slowly. One of the finest albums The Cure have ever made. Recommended.

"Faith" is an extraordinary album, a real experience to listen to in a quiet dark room with headphones. The songs, though sonewhat despondent, transport one away from the mundane to a more eerie sort of world. As I look at the cover art of the CD, I am reminded of a sort of ethereal grey background with a strange thumblike structure, which perfectly captures the essence of the album.

As far as the contents, while the up-tempo, danceable "Primary" is probably the best song on the album, there are clearly other gems. My favorite of the remainder of songs is "All Cats are Grey" with its mysterious, subdued and minimalistic music and lyrics. I love Robert Smith's subtle use of the synthesizer. "The Holy Hour," and "Other Voices" are outstanding tracks, as are the two closing songs "The Drowning Man" ("breathing like a drowning man") and "Faith" ("nothing left but faith"), which are really quite similar. "The Funeral Party" is perhaps not as good as the other slower contemplative songs on "Faith," but I'm always reminded of the theme from "Twin Peaks" when I hear it. As other reviewers have noted, the weakest track on the album is "Doubt" which almost, but not quite, temporarily ruins the mood, which is re-established by the final two songs.

Finally, it must be mentioned how important Simon Gallup's bass playing is to the success of "Faith." Since most of these songs include only three instruments, Gallup's bass must really stand out, and he does not disappoint. One point of interest is that Lol Tolhurst, who played the drums in these early albums in a rather metronomic-like fashion, would begin to play keyboards, which he played exclusively by "Head in the Door" (and one will notice an improvement in the band's drumming on this later album).

If I could have only two Cure albums (of original material), I would, of course, first choose "Disintegration," one of the greatest albums of all-time. My second choice would be "Faith."