•
Rating: And after describing the lunar eclipse of “Seventeen Seconds,” we transition into the solar eclipse of “Faith,” that is, the interposition of death (the moon) between life (the sun) and existence (the earth). The omnipresent and imaginary Mary (death), the struggle in which one believes, the hope that after death life continues, running through a gloomy dark forest, and the interminable 17 seconds, what did they reveal to Robert? Now Faith will try to reveal it to us.
Robert Smith, having reached the extreme of a delirious existentialism, where the word “Death” almost seems to induce a similar reflection as the only source of salvation for a better future, must strive to follow the right path. “Faith” is the journey beyond the grave to an infinite earthly paradise. This album is dark, dramatic, funeral, and the synthesizers become instruments of tragic pulmonary claustrophobia. Paradoxically, it has the exact same thematic perfection as Kubrick’s masterpiece film, “Shining,” with Robert Smith like Jack Nicholson, bearers of paranoid failed identifications, where space and time are linked between life and death chasing each other in a thorny labyrinth under a blanket of snow covering the desperate passage to find the exit to salvation. But you need to read the lyrics to understand what churned in Robert's troubled, fervent mind.
There is only a desire for self-destruction, the tastelessness of things, the crumpling of emotions, the disappointment of hidden truths, the unfulfilled sadness, everything is lost in the meanders of perpetual thought, the fear of confronting irreparable perdition, in reaching and uniting with Mary. One must desperately struggle through Dante's circles of hell, bow to purgatory, redeem in paradise, but how to find a calibrated and restorative way out that separates good from evil? Start dreaming! Mary exists, one must renounce sin to not fall into the pit, and sin must be killed, but this would become a homicide. Then the dream continues, but Mary has already been carried by the waves of Eden, and man, fragile, sits on the shore full of bitterness and desolation, she calls to him gently, the voice of the Angel of death echoes in his limbs and then he raises his gaze and realizes that there is a buoy in the middle of the sea where he can try to save himself, the buoy of hope, the waves represent his “God,” and so he kneels and begins to pray for himself, asking for forgiveness if he did not know how to love himself, asking for forgiveness to continue to love himself, atheist or believer, now he entrusts himself to his God, but it is not enough, the vision of the humid and icy tomb is obsessive, furrows his thoughts, but the voice calls him again and that last hope is the courage that revolves around this profound word called “Faith;” it is here that the mystery of the human being is contained, thus it will remain forever the greatest mystery of the psyche, no one can know what awaits us, the only way is to reach Mary in the divine destiny that God has marked for us without altering or accelerating time.
“The Holy Hour” Gallup’s bass and Robert’s guitar immortalize the anxious fragility of a complaining and chronic malaise with a finale of funeral bell tolls - “Primary” fast and sharp track, a race as if to free oneself from one’s emblematic sins - “Other Voices,” the bass gathers the temporary defeat and a scream exalts death as a call from another voice parallel to the being - “All Cats Are Gray” everything is so desolate and distant, strength to react is lacking, only another life will give life, Mary is a part of it - “The Funeral Party” drums and keyboards in a catacomb-like painful hypnotic dirge, in a pale celebration of an almost premeditated funeral - “Doubt” instruments and voice fight to the end, an unexpected awakening and the race through the labyrinth gives hope to find the exit - “The Drowning Man” the sweet voice of the (ambiguous) Angel calling again, and the buoy as the last hope, the embodied breath flowing into faith - “Faith” I personally consider the most sorrowful, overwhelming, and wonderful track I have ever heard in my life, a song of my darkest soul, indescribably belongs to me.
Faith triumphs over the fear of defeat, even if Mary left some traces in “Pornography”.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Primary (03:34)
The innocence of sleeping children
Dressed in white
And slowly dreaming
Stops all time
I slow my steps and start to blur
So many years have filled my heart
I never thought I'd say those words
The further we go
And older we grow
The more we know
The less we show
The very first time I saw your face
I thought of a song
And quickly changed the tune
The very first time I touched your skin
I thought of a story
And rushed to reach the end
Too soon
Oh remember
Please
Don't change
And so the fall came
Thirteen years
A shiny ring
And how I could forget your name
The air no longer in my throat
Another perfect lie is choked
But it always feels the same
So they close together
Dressed in red and yellow
Innocent forever
Sleeping children in their blue soft rooms
Still dream...
03 Other Voices (04:27)
Whisper your name in an empty room
You brush past my skin
As soft as fur
Taking hold
I taste your scent
Distant noises
Other voices
Pounding in my broken head
Commit the sin
Commit yourself
And all the other voices said
Change your mind
You're always wrong
Come around at Christmas
I really have to see you
Smile at me slyly
Another festive compromise
But I live with desertion
And eight million people
Distant noises
Other voices
Pulsing in my swinging arms
Caress the sound
So many dead
And all the other voices said
Change your mind
You're always wrong
04 All Cats Are Grey (05:26)
I never thought that I would find myself
In bed amongst the stones
The columns are all men
Begging to crush me
No shapes sail on the dark deep lakes
And no flags wave me home
In the caves
All cats are grey
In the caves
The textures coat my skin
In the death cell
A single note
Rings on and on and on...
05 The Funeral Party (04:13)
Two pale figures
Ache in silence
Timeless
In the quiet ground
Side by side
In age and sadness
I watched
And acted wordlessly
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Moving through an unknown past
Dancing at the funeral party
Memories of childrens' dreams
Lie lifeless
Fading
Lifeless
Hand in hand with fear and shadows
Crying at the funeral party
I heard a song
And turned away
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Noiselessly across the floor
Dancing at the funeral party
06 Doubt (03:11)
Stop my flight to fight
And die
And take a stand to change my life
So savage with red desperation
I clench my hands
You draw your claws
A hidden rage consumes my heart
As fuelled by years of wasted time
I close my eyes
And tense myself
And screaming
Throw myself in fury over the edge
And into your blood
Tear at flesh
And rip at skin
And smash at doubt
I have to break you
Fury drives my vicious blows
I see you fall but still I strike you
Again and again
Your body falls
The movement is sharp and clear and pure
And gone
I stop and kneel beside you
Drained of everything but pain
Screaming throw myself in fury
Over the edge and into your blood
Kiss you once and see you writhe
Hold you close and hear you cry
Kiss your eyes and finish your life
Finish your life
Again and again
Your body falls
The movement is sharp and clear and pure
And gone
I stop and kneel beside you
Knowing I'll murder you again tonight
07 The Drowning Man (04:48)
She stands twelve feet above the flood
She stares
Alone
Across the water
The loneliness grows and slowly
Fills her frozen body
Sliding downwards
One by one her senses die
The memories fade
And leave her eyes
Still seeing worlds that never were
And one by one the bright birds leave her...
Starting at the violent sound
She tries to turn
But final
Noiseless
Slips and strikes her soft dark head
The water bows
Receives her
And drowns her at its ease...
I would have left the world all bleeding
Could I only help you love
The fleeting shapes
So many years ago
So young and beautiful and brave
Everything was true
It couldn't be a story...
I wish it was all true
I wish it couldn't be a story
The words all left me
Lifeless
Hoping
Breathing like the drowning man
Oh Fuchsia!
You leave me
Breathing like the drowning man
Breathing like the drowning man
08 Faith (06:40)
Catch me if I fall
I'm losing hold
I can't just carry on this way
And every time
I turn away
Lose another blind game
The idea of perfection holds me...
Suddenly I see you change
Everything at once
The same
But the mountain never moves...
Rape me like a child
Christened in blood
Painted like an unknown saint
There's nothing left but hope...
Your voice is dead
And old
And always empty
Trust in me through closing years
Perfect moments wait...
If only we could stay
Please
Say the right words
Or cry like the stone white clown
And stand
Lost forever in a happy crowd...
No-one lifts their hands
No-one lifts their eyes
Justified with empty words
The party just gets better and better...
I went away alone
With nothing left
But faith
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By m
If sadness had the gift of emitting sound vibrations, it would probably sound like mournful bells foreboding grief against a backdrop of languid guitars that drool.
Faith is a single sensation of wonderful anguish, imperceptibly stretched over time.
By Overkill
"It's difficult to explain the frightening emotionality of this song, both lyrically and musically."
"Faith, seen as the ultimate resource, but also as damnation...drives away the squalid but comfortable bed of oblivion, of defeat."
By Rocky Marciano
An album that makes its "weak points" its strengths.
The title track represents the entire spirit of the work: dark, slow, melancholic, and full of that musical "monotony" and stillness.
By gigi sabani
Only a genius could create "Faith" at such a young age.
Unlike today where many musicians pretend to be different... Robert Smith at 21 "was" different and lived his diversity on his own skin.
