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Rating: Faust IV is a very varied and fragmented album. In this case, the lack of homogeneity turns out to be an advantage that enhances fluidity and ease of listening.
The experimental aspect is kept quite in check but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The most important track is put right at the opening, and the overall judgment is therefore strongly influenced by its success: it is the resounding manifesto "Krautrock," almost 12 instrumental minutes during which three main moments can be distinguished. After a beginning of pure, indistinct sonic magma, the drums introduce rhythm and speed.
The piece takes off towards a more sustained central part and then dives into a finale with beautiful epic tones.
Here, for the first time, one can guess the origins and ideas of the sound that My Bloody Valentine brought to its natural fruition. It is a dense and fascinating scenario that is evoked and it is a stroke of genius to follow such solemnity with the irony of the playful "The Sad Skinhead," an almost reggae rhythm on which a hilarious text is grafted ("Going places smashing faces what else could we do?").
The third piece, "Jennifer," is another strong point of the work: dark, pressing, sweet, obsessive, absolutely modern.
There is a slight drop in the second part, but also enough inventions to keep listening interesting.
Especially worth mentioning is the concluding "It’s A Bit Of A Pain," a bucolic folk ballad tainted by sudden noisy jolts.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
02 The Sad Skinhead (02:43)
Apart from all the bad times you gave me
I always felt good with you
Going places, smashing faces
what else could we do?
Apart from all the good times I gave you
you always felt bad with me
Going places, smashing faces
what else could have happened to us?
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Other reviews
By De-cano
"Faust IV, certainly a great album, was devalued by the Faust Tapes."
"Faust, when reaching for the stars didn’t mean shining for success."
By Neu!_Cannas
Kraut is a whole different story, it's made by crazy people who take you by the hand into desolate meadows and... invite you to raise your eyes to the sky, towards the cosmic, towards the indefinable.
Faust IV is its worthy epitaph, and even if they will never be remembered and cited enough... no one will ever know what really happened, except them, of course.
By stiff.kitten
Faust IV is a milestone of the whole kraut currents, a thirty-six-year-old that still seems like a newborn, one of the absolute joys for my ears.
Faust make great music because they manage to evoke images that seem resurrected from the most intimate experiences but actually belong to an android world that sometimes seems to blur with ours.
