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Rating: After the release of "Seventeen Seconds", the group from Crawley dives into a work with even grayer and more suffering tones.
Never as in "Faith" will the sense of decay be so evident in a Cure album; the tracks, if in its predecessor were already slower compared to the debut of "Three Imaginary Boys", are now of an agonizing stillness, wrapped in a deadly stupor.
Aside from the danceable "Primary" and the violent outburst of "Doubt", the sense of heaviness is often unbearable, and is rendered not only by the fatalistic lyrics, but by an ever more obsessive rhythm section, worthy of the PiL of "Second Edition", and keyboards that literally bury the sound structures (these are played by Smith himself, since the previous keyboardist, Mathieu Hartley, has been removed).
Smith's voice, sometimes agonizing, sometimes resigned, does the rest.
"The Holy Hour" baptizes the album in the guise of a sort of private mass, paced by the distant chimes of Tolhurst and the dull progression of the bass and guitar. It must be said that the album is almost a concept about faith as its name suggests, and with "The Holy Hour" one is introduced to this feverish search for certainty, and indeed, the song almost represents the initial moment of the "crisis".
"Primary" is anomalous compared to the rest of the album; as mentioned before, it is driven by a train-like rhythm that makes it resemble "Play for Today"; the lyrics too are out of context, with an invective against the English educational system.
With "Other Voices", the first masterpiece, the thematic canons are re-entered. A rustle and a compressed, distant drum introduce one of the most suffering riffs in all of dark music (even though Smith will constantly reject this term, the works from "Seventeen Seconds" to "Pornography", including the single "Charlotte Sometimes", can undoubtedly be placed in the goth scene...), as well as a voice that calling it sad would be euphemistic. Robert's moral ghosts appear here ruthless, ready to insinuate the doubt that brings destruction.
The exquisite "All Cats Are Grey", whose content is Shakespearean in origin, sets up a whirling bass line, well supported by a shadowy drum and Smith's fatalistic whispering; it is the prologue to the true masterpiece of the album, "The Funeral Party". With this piece, they reach the peaks of "The Eternal" and "24 Hours", as well as "Swan Lake" or "Albatross".
It's difficult to explain the frightening emotionality of this song, both lyrically and musically. The suffering and resignation that transpire from this bare melody are simply intolerable, with drums and bass repeating the same dead phrases, and a keyboard so touching as to seem unreal. Meanwhile, Smith raves about a funeral where it is possible to dance and cry, in an atmosphere permeated by a perpetual sadness. Truly tear-inducing.
After the muffled abyss of "The Funeral Party", a sudden slap is given by the doubt sown in "Other Voices". "Doubt" indeed is driven by a vehemence alien to the previous atmospheres. Although the speed may associate it with "Primary", the themes and musical structure are radically different. The music is in fact extremely concise and direct, decidedly post-punk, while the collected voice from the funeral party
explodes in a nervous breakdown outburst. Almost the last gasp of a man who is drowning, the last desperate attempt. In "The Drowning Man" indeed vanishes any hint of vitality; Smith's death row chant marks a melody full of reverberations, where the guitar strings are torn. As usual, the bass creates loss-inducing claustrophobia, well supported by the synth. The theme is one of resigned suffocation, of the extinguishing senses, slow and velvety, until breathing like the drowning man. A truly distressing metaphor.
To be highlighted, for the record, is the great work of Gallup, who with his moribund pulsing coins a very personal and effective style, which fits well with Smith's truly peculiar guitar work.
The closure is entrusted to the title track, where once again grayness and gloom prevail. Every residual hold is faded, every hope is chimerical. Everything except obviously faith itself. Faith, seen as the ultimate resource, but also as damnation. Faith that still forces the heart to fight a war lost from the start. That drives away the squalid but comfortable bed of oblivion, of defeat. Which compared to this ongoing
agony takes on the features of a savior, comparable to the famous "consoling death".
"Faith" thus concludes with this deep reflection on how sometimes the taste of annihilation is sweeter than an empty and blind faith.
And so concludes what is in my opinion the work most laden with malaise of the '80s. Not a cynical and angry malaise like that of Suicide, not the realistically metaphysical one of Joy Division, not the violent and esoteric one of early Christian Death, not even the claustrophobic and ingenious one of PiL. An existential and fatalistic malaise, typically adolescent, which may certainly seem pathetic and self-flagellating to many, but in my opinion free from that mannerism that will characterize the works of The Cure post-"Pornography", and which now reaches the peak-abyss of lyricism and intensity.
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
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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 Mariaelena
This album is dark, dramatic, funeral, and the synthesizers become instruments of tragic pulmonary claustrophobia.
‘Faith’ I personally consider the most sorrowful, overwhelming, and wonderful track I have ever heard in my life, a song of my darkest soul.
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.
