Faith | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by The Cure | ||||
Released | 14 April 1981 | |||
Recorded | September–November 1980 , February–March 1981 | |||
Studio | Morgan Studios, England | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 36:54 | |||
Label | Fiction | |||
Producer |
|
|||
The Cure chronology | ||||
|
||||
Singles from Faith | ||||
|
Professional ratings | |
---|---|
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
Blender | |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
The Guardian | |
Mojo | |
Pitchfork | 8.8/10 |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
Sounds | |
Uncut |
Faith is the third studio album by British alternative rock band the Cure, released on 14 April 1981 by record label Fiction. Preceded by the single "Primary", the album was a commercial success in the UK, peaking at number 14 and staying in the albums chart for 8 weeks. It was mostly well received by critics.
Faith saw the Cure continuing in the gloomy vein of 1980's Seventeen Seconds, which would conclude with the band's next album, Pornography.
Following the tour for Seventeen Seconds, the Cure returned to Morgan Studios on 27 September 1980 to record a new album, minus Matthieu Hartley, who had departed due to disagreement with the musical direction of the band. During this session, recordings of songs "All Cats Are Grey" and "Primary" were attempted, but neither ended up on the album. Robert Smith was hoping the tracks would sound "funereal", but instead he said "they just sounded dull". Several other studios were tried: Red Bus, Trident, The Roundhouse and Abbey Road.
Much of Faith was written in the studio. At least two songs on the album, "All Cats Are Grey" and "The Drowning Man", were inspired by the Gormenghast novels of Mervyn Peake.Faith was the first album by the Cure to feature six-string bass guitar; "All Cats Are Grey" features Smith on keyboards and piano, with no guitar at all. The front cover, designed by former and future member Porl Thompson, is a picture of Bolton Priory in the village of Bolton Abbey in the fog.
The instrumental piece "Carnage Visors" (an antonym for rose-coloured spectacles; originally available only on the long-play cassette release) is the soundtrack to Carnage Visors, a short film by Ric Gallup, Simon Gallup's brother, that was screened at the beginning of shows in place of a support band on the 1981 Picture Tour, and featured animation of several dolls in different positions and stances. The film has since disappeared, and only Smith, Lol Tolhurst and Simon Gallup own copies of it, though during a televised interview in the mid-1980s, the host of the program surprised the band by playing a clip of the film on set.