Disco de The Cure: “Faith”

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.

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.

'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.

This album breathes Gothic. But this without being simply scary or Dark Rock just to please the dancing passion of a disco gothic. Hardly any other album from the genre has managed to be both so haunting and so tragic. The perfect soundtrack to expressionistic films from the Twenties. The greyish cloister nicely illustrates the sacral, uncanny character of the album. Every piece picks up the end of its predecessor and turns it into another foggy thing. The economically arranged calm of "The Holy Hour" changes into hysteria in "Primary". The poetic pictures of "Primary" make a strange contrast to its staccato guitar line. "Other Voices" is a ghostly dance of desperation

fuelled by misunderstanding of personal desires. "All Cats Are Grey" seems to be for the time when someone is through with life. No more tears to cry. Just the feeling of total emptiness and loss. Still a choking feeling of grief. The keyboard lines are even more touching than the ones in Joy Divison's "Decades". As a contrast "The funeral party" is all wet with tears. "Doubt" is a fierce return to "Other Voices". Though just made up of a simple thin guitar, fast drums and bass without the surrealism of "Voices" it is perhaps one of the most gothic songs ever recorded. The violence of it is all futile. Just fuelled by total desperation underlined by the eerie whining of Roberts Voice all through the song. "The Drowning Man" and its cascades of chilling guitar delivers a setting of total sadness that the singer seems to drown in. The inability to help a lost soul. The heaviness of simple bass lines in faith accompanies the desperate search of Robert for something to keep him from getting lost in futility. "With nothing left but faith". When it comes to the end all that will be left is the belief that life had a meaning. You might call this a "serious" goth album just as Joy Division made serious music. Other Comparisons may be some calm moments in the works of Virgin Prunes or Bauhaus. So enjoy this if you think that goth can be more than deathrock by 45 Grave.

Okko