2-CD: 982 183-4
RELEASED: 2005
LABEL: Fiction
Disc: 1
01. The Holy Hour
02. Primary
03. Other Voices
04. All Cats Are Grey
05. The Funeral Party
06. Doubt
07. The Drowning Man
08. Faith
09. Carnage Visors - The Soundtrack
Disc: 2
01. Faith (Instrumental Demo)
02. Doubt (Instrumental Demo)
03. Drowning (Instrumental Demo)
04. The Holy Hour (Home Demo)
05. Primary (Studio Out-Take)
06. Going Home Time (Studio Out-Take)
07. The Violin Song ( Studio Out-Take)
08. A Normal Story (Studio Out-Take)
09. All Cats Are Grey (Live 1981)
10. The Funeral Party (Live 1981)
11. Other Voices (Live 1981)
12. The Drowning Man (Live Australasia 8/1981)
13. Faith (Live In The Sydney Capitol Theatre 8/1981)
14. Forever (Live 1981)
15. Charlotte Sometimes (Single 1980)
Digitally remastered 2-CD set compiled by Robert Smith. Features 4 previously unreleased tracks and 15 tracks on CD for the very first time including Carnage Visors: the soundtrack. Deluxe package contains a 20 page booklet including sleevenotes and lyrics with rare and previously unseen photographs. Lush and atmospheric, 1981’s Faith is a striking conceptual song cycle marked by spiritual resonance, gothic veneer, and such signature Cure songs as “The Drowning Man,” “Primary,” and “All Cats Are Grey.” A bonus disc, Rarities 1980-1981, contains 15 tracks making their CD debut, including the unreleased cuts “Drowning,” “Going Home Time,” “The Violin Song,” and “A Normal Story.” On "Faith", the revolving Cure line-up was down to a core of three: Robert Smith on vocals and lead, Simon Gallup on bass, and Laurence Tolhurst on drums, with keyboardist Matthieu Hartley abruptly leaving days before the recording session started. Slimmed down to the elemental basics, the band's playing is honed tight, with Gallup's big bass sound up front and Smith's guitars washing over the mix. Some of the songs on this disc are stone-cold classics. The major lyrical inspirations for the songs are said to be the death of "several friends and relations" and the terminal illness of Tolhurst's mother, and that combined with Smith's meditations on faith and disbelief provide the thematic core for the album. There is a broad sonic range within the basic bleakness of the album: "Primary" and "Other Voices," which both appear on the excellent Staring at the Sea compilation, are jittery, paranoid fun, as is "Doubt," while "The Funeral Party," "The Drowning Man," and "Faith" are majestic, epic stretches of unremitting rainy darkness. This release is where The Cure found the heart of darkness that was only hinted in earlier songs. The band wouldn't release another album that was so thoroughly and completely dark until "Disintegration" closed out their classic period at the end of the 1980s, but the darkness that flowered on Faith is what many still consider to be the Cure's classic sound, and it would reappear lyrically or musically on almost every other Cure release. Carnage Visors - The Soundtrack on Disc 1 is a 27-minute instrumental, a soundtrack to a 1981 tour film and previously available on the cassette version of Faith. Disc 2 consists of home demos and studio out-takes of the "Faith" material, four previously unreleased songs cut during the Faith sessions, and majestic live performances from the summer of 1981. Disc 2 closes with the Cure's landmark 1981 single "Charlotte Sometimes, in which the dead ground covered by the Faith sessions yields a sinisterly beautiful flower, a perfect goth pop single.
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