Customer Reviews

Faith [Deluxe Edition]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Out of the three reissues, this one has my vote for the most "revealing" of the three that just were released. The remastered sound of the original album is a great improvement over the original issue and reveals a lot more going on under the spare arrangements. If there's one thing about these reissues that is most noticeable, it's that the distant quality of Robert Smith's voice is enhanced and made even more ghost-like. The echoes ring out more, things are given much more space. 'Other Voices' and 'The Drowning Man' are the best examples of this. One of the biggest incentives to buy this is the full, remastered version of 'Carnage Visors' is present on the first disc.

The bonus material is first rate. These demos show the most of the developement process out of all of the reissues. Many of these discarded instrumental demos, specifically 'A Normal Story' would sound completely out of place on the album, being much too upbeat. The 'Doubt' and 'Primary' demo recordings are almost completely different songs, especially 'Primary' which in ways might be cooler than the album version. The live material shows the limitations that The Cure had as being a trio (as well as the keyboard sounds being, a bit cheesy to today's standards, or even compared to the album itself). The live version of 'The Drowning Man' sounds very strange, even filled with sound effects, but is a great performance from Smith. 'Forever' is another obscure Cure song that has been on a million and a half bootlegs, but has finally found the light of day here, given in a version not quite as good as some other ones I've heard. It's also a huge plus to have the 'Charlotte Sometimes' single here with the b-side version of 'Faith'.

This reissue, is nearly flawless, and is certainly essential to any Cure fan's collection. The sound quality is a substantial improvement over the original issue and the rare material is extremely fun.

Sleek. Streamlined. Minimalist. Incredibly beautiful and surprisingly varied. Faith manages to capture the Cure at their creative peak. From start to finish, this album is nothing short of perfection. The words and vocals, the music, the production and engineering - they all fall right into place. Nearly all these songs can be considered Cure classics ( for the fans of the band who prefer the darker, more serious Cure to the upbeat, more pop oriented side). Primary. Other Voices. The Funeral Party. And my personal favourite The Drowning Man. All incredible. This remastered and expanded edition sounds terrific as well, which is icing on the cake. The original cd issue on the Elektra label just didn't sound quite right. There was distortion in many of the basslines, and the keyboards sounded hollow and tinny. This version corrects those mastering mistakes. The synths are warm and rich in tone, and the highs and lows in the mix are much easier on the ear. Granted, the subject matter isn't exactly "upbeat" but the messages are important, and certainly open to interpretation. Listen to the final, title track. The last words - "there's nothing left but faith" - can be seen as a sign of defeat or of hope, depending on how it is taken. The extras on the bonus disc are a revelation, tracking the evolution of the songs on Faith, from listening to the demos, the songs in their rawest form, to hearing the live versions, where they are performed with complete conviction, if not total technical proficiency. My favourite here has to be the often bootlegged, 10 minute version of the title cut "Faith" performed in Australia and originally featured on the b-side to the Charlotte Sometimes 12" single. "This is the last song it's called Faith" Robert says. Turn the volume up very loud and you can here one lone female scream, then the count-off "one, two, three, four" and the familiar beat kicks in, the mourful bassline, and Robert's signature guitar playing. This IS the Cure.

**This review reflects the Pornography and Seventeen Seconds re-releases as well, but mostly discusses Faith** Classic Cure remastered. Awesome. The middle of the three of their most morose works, Faith, is definitley their peak. The state of the band at this time influenced this record and especially Pornography, and thank goodness for it. The bass is thumping louder and the drums have more life to them. You have to hear it to know what I mean. Carnage Visors is the ultimate treat on this remaster. Its a 30+ minute soundtrack that The Cure did to an eerie student film of the same name that they played before shows to get the crowd in the right(or wrong) mood for what lied ahead. It has a brooding, menacing sound to it; It climax's towards the end too, starting off slowly with metallic guitars, thundering bass and macabre synths until ultimatley everything grow louder and more intense. A must hear for any Cure fan who loves the Faith album(or any of them). Even if you have the original album it is worth it to get this, there is a BIG difference in sound. The best part is that the new mastering doesnt hinder the music. It actually makes it better to listen to. The bonus songs truly are hit and miss, mostly quality-wise. The good studio songs that are on here for the first time are excellent. It's just too bad their are no vocals...for any of them...on any of the three recent remasters. But they are still good. The live stuff is so-so...quality is pretty sour and the "home demos" are about the same quality as the live stuff so ya know. This goes for Seventeen Seconds and Pornography(which has the best new sound!). These albums managed to pack an emotional punch when they were first released, and they still do the same thing to this day. The lyrics on Faith create a vision of desolation and despair, and the music guides these visions into your very heart. You can call it goth. I call it soothing. This album along with Pornography and Seventeen Seconds all have the same eerieness; The same chilling edge that makes these albums so timeless...and classic. They literally self-destructed for a short while during this time period, and these albums reflect the emotional tailspins and debauchery shown in Robert Smith's lyrics. Just read the lyrics to Doubt and you'll see what I mean. Do yourself a favor and pick this up. A great buy even if you have to shell out a lil' cash for it. Special note: All Cats Are Grey is somehow twice as intoxicating now...

Often considered the middle of a trilogy of albums progressively darker in mood, "Faith" is an album about just that, about faith, or lack thereof. It is a stark, almost minimalist album, with Robert Smith handling keyboard as well as well as guitar duties and joined by bassist Simon Gallup and drummer Lol Tolhurst, the album is hushed, almost minimalist-- stretches where notes ring out over the light percussion background, there's little in the way of the ringing guitars that dominated the previous record, and the album is largely unaggressive in its presentation. This actually works quite to the strengths of Gallup and Tolhurst-- with the guitars and keyboards assuming a passive role, the bass is as aggressively voiced and Tolhurst's somewhat limited and minimalist technique match the music beautifully.

In fact, its a dark, funereal tone that drives the majority of this material, songs like "Holy Hour", "All Cats are Grey" and the bizarrely uplifting "The Funeral Party" don't rise in aggression above a sort of dark hazy swell, and even somewhat more aggressive pieces like the fantastic "Primary" and the title track maintain a despondent tone and a sort of hushed feel. The result is largely an album of delicate, fragile beauty, where the rare extroverted moments (the positively jangly "Doubt" and the much more aggressive "The Drowning Man") are somewhat shocking and almost out of place.

For this reissue, the remastering has, if anything added to the album a great deal-- while the record deals in hushed tones and quiet synths, there's no sense of fuzziness throughout the album courtesy of the crisp remastered sound. Again, the liner notes detail the creation of the album (in rather candid tone at that), and the reissue is filled with extra material-- the dark and bubbling (and seemingly endless at 27+ minutes) "Carnage Visors" and the great single "Charlotte Sometimes" are the gems this time around, with again a number of great live takes on material from the album and a series of demos that are interesting but ultimately unfulfilling on their own.

"Faith" is in many ways the musical equivalent of its cover-- a sort of grey album. It has a number of powerful moments, and while it can be a bit overwhelming due to its endlessly dark quality, it is a fine album. Recommended.

The Cure - Faith (originally released 1981)

Much darker and gloomier than its predecessor SEVENTEEN SECONDS, FAITH is typically one of the most beloved Cure albums by fans who get into their brand of "depression rock" (and I would be one of them). "Haunting" is a rather overused term, but many songs on this record definitely fit that description, especially the trippy "Other Voices," the gorgeous "The Drowning Man" and the doom and gloom title track masterpiece. The only track I really don't care for is "Primary," the album's only single. Its mood doesn't fit in well with the other songs and, to me, it sounds too much like a conventional rock song, and the Cure are capable of so much more than that. If the "Charlotte Sometimes" single had taken its place, FAITH would be perfect.

Overall, FAITH sounds like a bleak testament of spiritual desolation. For Cure leader and lyricist Robert Smith, the comfort of religion crumbles away in the face of this harsh life, leaving him with "nothing left but faith." The period during which FAITH was made was one of the darkest in Smith's life. According to the accompanying liner notes, Smith came to realize around this time that he in fact did not have faith in a "personal entity."

Added to the end of Disk 1 is the rare "Carnage Visors" (which I used to have on tape, a special release with FAITH on one side and "Carnage Visors" on the other), a dark, droning, nearly 30 minute long instrumental. It's bleak atmosphere provides a useful backdrop for chilling out. For me, it has a calming effect.

Disk 2 -

The bonus CD is chock full of interesting rarities, fun to explore for the dedicated fan but inessential for the casual fan, save for the mind-blowing "Forever." My impressions of Disk 2:

"Faith" (Robert Smith home demo) - spare but interesting demo of "Faith," just Smith on guitar playing along to a drum machine.

"Doubt" (Robert Smith home demo) - another home demo sketch, this one is much different than the heavy-rocking final version. Slow and meandering, it's only about 1 minute long.

"Drowning" (group home demo) - this unused song sketch is desolate and ominous.

"Holy Hour" (group home demo) - this is a great demo, totally warped with trippy atmospherics that didn't appear on the final version. The bass guitar sounds like it's totally overloading an amplifier.

"Primary" (studio out-take) - quite different than the final released version, this take is really spacey.

"Violin Song" and "A Normal Story" are, unfortunately, unremarkable sketches for unfinished songs, never used. (studio out-takes)

"All Cats Are Grey" (live) - the drums sound is absolutely amazing, but I'm pretty sure Lol Tolhurst is playing along to a pre-recorded drum track. Still, Tolhurst was a pretty creative if quite limited drummer who doesn't get as much credit as he might deserve. He could definitely keep a beat. Overall, this is a great version of "All Cats Are Grey" with Robert on synth.

"The Funeral Party" (live) - a good version of this mellow, depressing dirge.

"Other Voices" (live) - excellent version

"The Drowning Man" (live) - beautiful, very cool version that employs some elements not found on the studio version, in particular, strange intermittant "whirlwind" sounds.

"Faith" (live) - this greatly extended version of "Faith" is solid but not legendary like certain bootlegs (still floating around I would imagine), and it can't top the original studio version.

"Forever" (live) - this nearly 10 minute long non-album epic proves the Cure could get VERY heavy when they wanted to. Builds to an ecstatic climax comparable to "The End" by the Doors, but maybe even better. The crowning jewel of Disk 2.

"Charlotte Sometimes" - the lush, moody original single.

I know FAITH is the favorite Cure album of more than a few certain fans, although it's not their strongest one in my view. But as a die-hard fan, I can't rate this release less than 5 stars, especially considering the inclusion of "Forever." Like every release in this series of remastered Cure albums with bonus rarities disks, the packaging is excellent with a very informative essay and rare photos, including an ultra-rare shot of Robert Smith with a big grin on his face.

While `Seventeen Seconds' was dark, `Faith' is pitch black. `Seventeen Seconds' may have been sullen, but `Faith' is downright bleak. For all of that, it's also a slightly better album than its predecessor. Singer/songwriter Robert Smith was getting very good at expressing depression, even when it was painfully over wrought (I'm sorry, but every time I hear him singing about `crying at the funeral party', I have a perverse desire to laugh out loud). `Faith' was the perfect record to play if you felt incapable of crying but wanted to experience your depression anyway. It offers eight dirges, each one capturing a different nuance of catatonic pain. The naïve but appealing simplicity of "Boys Don't Cry" (their first album) is further expanded on here, but with some subtle and yet very significant changes. Words are boiled down to almost nothing, while the music provides atmospherics that fill in the moody blanks. For effect, somebody spent a hundred bucks on a flanger pedal, and quite obviously must have liked it, since it appears on virtually every song here, along with tons of echo and reverb.
For all of the atmospherics, though, the real mood setter is Robert Smith's voice; never in the history of recorded music has someone sounded so distracted, doleful, and depressed. He makes late-era Billy Holiday sound like Mary Poppins. I could be judgmental and claim that the album contains only eight songs due to a lack of songwriting ideas, but I think it is more due to the fact that they simply could not bring themselves to edit the chord progressions. Many songs build for over two minutes before vocals enter, but this only adds to the hypnotic appeal of the depressing themes. This utterly simple (or mind-numbingly redundant) game plan results in a record that is, for better or worse, extremely consistent in content, and in mood.
The extra disk (and extra track on disk one) is even creepier - and somehow even simpler in structure - than the main album. The audio quality for some of it sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom...underwater. Most tunes consist of a few repetitive, hypnotic chords, making time slow down like some musical version of Einstein's theory of relativity. "Carnage Visors" does this for thirty full minutes, with no vocal.
The fact is, you already know if you like the Cure or not. "Faith" captures them at a point in time when they completely abandon commercial acceptance and leap headlong into cult status. If you'd like to know where stylized gloom developed, then you've come to the right place. B Tom Ryan

Wow, what a difference a year makes. The difference in the band's sound from 1980 to 1981 was astonishing. Whereas Seventeen Seconds was a stark, cold, moody, atmospheric album, Faith is much more downbeat, orchestral and dark. Both albums are great, but of the two, I prefer this one. It begins with my favorite track off the album, The Holy Hour. The deep, slow bassline and chiming bells indicate right off what type of mood will prevail. This is a wonderful, wonderful album. As I said, not only do I love the sound progression, but I love the band's image progression as well. The liner notes and pics are a great bonus for someone like me who enjoys looking back to those halcyon days and remembering the look that was coming into vogue. Ahh, the good-old days! Can't recommend this one enough.

Although heavy in topic the music of FAITH is marked with a sad beauty. Icy synth sounds feature heavily throughout and, combined with the machine-like pulse of Lol Tolhurst's drum kit, gives the music a fragile feel. Echo and reverb are treated on instruments and voices alike that linger over the music of FAITH like a heavy fog.

"All Cats Are Grey" is lyrically sparse, yet conveys greater emotion through it's lengthy instrumental passages. The superb "Other Voices" has a great bass riff (courtesy of Simon Gallup) and opens with one of Robert Smith's memorable anguished howls. Two of FAITH's songs disrupt the dark tranquility of the album with surprising jolts (one being the propulsive tempo of "A Primary" and the other the jarringly violent "Doubt"). "The Holy Hour" and "Faith" are also standouts.

FAITH is a four-star recording, but the latest repackaging of this fine album adds a bonus disc of largely forgettable material, and for this I feel I must subtract a star from the overall rating. Because B-side material from the Cure's singles was relegated to the Join the Dots box set, that leaves out-takes (mostly uninteresting instrumentals), demo material (murkily recorded, skeletal versions of FAITH tracks), and live performances to fill the bonus CD. Still, there are a few treasures to be found here. The early version of "A Primary" that is revealed here is practically a new song in itself. The A-Side single "Charlotte Sometimes" is awkwardly tacked on at the very end, but is a welcome addition nonetheless. And immerse yourself in the extended live version of "Faith" if you want the lingering feeling of gloom to last a little longer.

If the bonus disc did not add to the sticker price of the final product then I wouldn't raise much fuss. I have nothing but praise for the Rhino label and the packaging for the Cure reissues is very impressive (lyrics, liner notes, and lots of photos including Robert Smith entering his trademark wild-hair and make-up persona). This reissue nicely summarizes the look and sound of this early period in the Cure's history. More surprises were yet to come.

A lot of the Cure's Deluxe Edition albums don't seem necessary unless you want to own every bit of music the band ever recorded, since the bonus discs are primarily live versions and early demos of familiar songs. (The b-sides were instead released on the "Join the Dots" box set.) This material is moderately interesting, but far from essential. In many cases, you would be fine just getting the single-disc remastered version of each album that was released after the Deluxe Edition at a fraction of the price. However, the Deluxe Edition of "Faith" is different. If you are a Cure fan, you should really consider getting it. First and foremost, disc 1 contains the 27 minute instrumental track "Carnage Visors" previously only available on the tape of "Concert." This is the ulimate Cure chill-out track, almost an album's worth of music in one song. While it is on disc 1, it is not included on the single-disc version of the remastered "Faith," so you have to get the Deluxe Edition to get it.

Much of the material on disc 2 of "Faith" I can give or take-- live versions and studio demos akin to the other Deluxe Edition albums. (That said, the instrumental demos fit well with the feel of "Carnage Visors.") But there are also some real gems. First off, you get the remastered version of "Charlotte Sometimes," a great Cure single not available in remastered form elsewhere. You also the fan-favorite live version of the song "Faith" from Australia that was a b-side to the original "Charlotte Sometimes" single, but was left off "Join the Dots.") You also get a version of "Forever," a fan-favorite rarity not previously available on cd. In all, the combination of "Carnage Visors" on disc 1 and a handful of particularly good rarities on disc 2 makes "Faith" the one essential Deluxe Edition album for most Cure fans.

I really cannot recommend Faith too highly; exitstential obliqueness, stark emotional terrains of bleak lyricism and poetic sketchings on the absurdity of the human condition. Quietly disturbing and infused with a subtle melancholy, the album evokes a cool still calm that is both soothing and contemplative.

Haunting, desolate soundscapes that evoke images of walking through a mist filled forest at midnight, of monolithic buildings and wispy, stick like figures, floating in a swirling fog. Faith is an album that will take you in and out of yourself.

Strange, beautiful, otherworldly music that stirs the imagination and awakens the soul.

Sublime and profound.