Band: Faith

CD Title: “Blessed?”

Label: Transubstans Records

Release Date: 2008

Sometimes it takes a while for a band to get everything in place to be ready to record an album. But I have to say Swedish band Faith have taken that to new reaches. Their origins go back to 1984 where even then they were playing Doom Metal and probably one of the first acts to be playing in that sub-genre at the time. But it wasn’t until 2003 that they released their first full length album. Now here they are with their third official release entitled Blessed? and it’s quite the disc.

Faith is essentially a trio consisting of Roger Johansson (guitars), Christer Nilsson (bass, vocals) and Peter Svensson (drums). These three have the assistance of Hakan Malmros (violin) and Anders Smedenmark (Swedish Key Fiddle). Now given the sparse credited instrumentation the music on Blessed? is augmented with subtle keyboard and grand symphonic orchestration at times. And that’s what made this an interesting listen for me.

When I saw the description Doom Metal, I thought I knew what to expect, but actually I was pleasantly surprised, because while this music is definitely heavy, dark and doomy, there are some absolutely brilliant moments. I really liked the grand crescendos and musical change-ups in the first track “Blessed Void of Bewilderment” (8:21), the second track “Big Red, Nebraska” (4:52) was pretty straight forward aggressive heavy metal, but it was the third track “Polska efter Ida I Rye” (2:23) that really won me over. It sounds like it could be a traditional folk piece but they’ve added a heavy guitar, drums and bass counterpoint which gives it an amazing up-beat punch. And I guess that’s to be expected since ‘Polska’ means a Nordic dance. But they give it their own twist. This then goes into the almost haunting, spooky “Necropolis” (6:22) with its medieval chanting vocals and symphonic introduction. It’s all pretty fascinating stuff. Make no mistake though, this is a heavy disc…and as the style suggests the tone is dark and gloomy, but the band is inventive in their arrangements and especially in their use of a folk instrumentation and musical styles. The mix really comes together nicely in the song “Twillight” (6:08) which has plenty of gritty heaviness and yet allows for the traditional sounds to poke through near the end of the piece. The CD ends with another one of those traditional sounding compositions entitled “Leipzigpolska” (6:05), a sort of doom-metal party song, and it works for me. It’s the kind of piece that made me want to hit reply and listen to it all over again.

So if you like prog-influenced, heavy symphonic doom metal in the style of Therion then you will enjoy the music of Faith and this disc Blessed?. For me it was a pleasant surprise and a nice change of pace.