Posted on: October 25, 2009 Posted by: anfnewsacct Comments: 0

Can I say that I completely misjudged The Faithfull from their CD cover? I was imagining a sullen, quiet, boring indie rock band, and I was given a up-tempo, post-hardcore verging on emo-rock band. Aside from my birthday and yule gifts, I would have to say that this was one of the best surprises I’ve gotten in the last few years. Mixing the best elements of Boys Night Out, The Goodlife, Thousand Foot Krutch, Brand New, and all those other bands with the same general sound, The Faithfull mix a high sense of harmony and beautiful vocals (given by Nick) and a hard, punky edged sound (Nick and the rest of The Faithfull). There is one key facet in which The Faithfull are different from the legions of emo-rockers patrolling the hearts of preteen girls, and that is that they are able to go and create a solid acoustic track (even sounding at times like those great acoustic songs by Extreme of yesteryear) in “Shotgun”. However, the slightly weaker-edged “Situations” is a track that takes a while for a listener to fu

Coming through in a vengeful way, the bass flitters above the rest of “Attitude”, probably the most radio-friendly and excellent songs on “Our Own Heroes”. The chorus of “Attitude” is right up there with standards like The Movie Life’s “Hand Grenade” or even Loudermilk’s “Estrogen Oxygen”. The news around The Faithfull is that they actually passed Danzig on a magazine’s “most added” chart – I can believe that, as The Faithfull’s star is rising pretty much proportionally to however much Danzig’s is falling. “Standing Eight Count” is another track that has wonderfully-screamed out vocals meshing well with simple and yet moving guitar riffs.

Wonderfully earthy through their entire CD, The Faithfull are able to catch the heart and minds of anyone who is lucky enough to see them live or listen to “Our Own Heroes”. A lot of music is coming out from bands that have the same general idea as The Faithfull, but I would be hard-pressed to find any band that does it as successfully as The Faithfull. “Our Own Heroes” is an album that is a landmark in a genre filled by bad albums – the required road trip album for the generation of those kids who are growing up now.

Rating: 8.5/10

Top Tracks: Shotgun, Attitude

The Faithfull – Our Own Heroes / 11 Tracks / 2003 Reason Y Records /http://www.thefaithfull.com / http://www.reasony.com/ Released 17 February 2004 / Reviewed 16 April 2004

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