Critic's Review
Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
Part two of an unofficial trilogy that begins with 1980's Seventeen Seconds and ends with 1982's Pornography -- acknowledged as such by Rhino, who unloaded deluxe reissues of all three on the same day -- Faith now comes with the expected second disc of demos, outtakes, scarcities, and so-so-sounding performance material. The most noteworthy addition to Faith's original running order is "Carnage Visors," a sprawling funeral march that gradually fades in and then out after half an hour, as if it's only a segment from a piece that's being generated until the end of time. Its actual purpose: as a score to a film, made by Simon Gallup's brother, which preceded the band during some tour dates. Previously available only on the cassette version of Faith, it appears at the end of disc one, giving the album proper the feel of a double LP. (So, instead of the traditional, frenzied freak-out that you'd get at the end of some psychedelics-addled albums in the late '60s, you now have a mope-out that kicks the morbid tone of the earlier songs further downward.) The second disc opens with four barren demos trailed by an equal number of relatively clean-sounding studio outtakes. An alternate take of "Primary" puts the album version in front of a fun house mirror; the other three scraps are also for manic obsessives and few others. Distant-sounding live tracks, taken from several performances, will interest as many listeners, though the presence of a nine-minute "Forever" is worthy of a little more excitement (a studio version has surfaced on bootlegs, making it one of those much-talked-about rarities). The black licorice gumball at the bottom is "Charlotte Sometimes," a non-album A-side released in the autumn of 1981. As hoped, Faith itself sounds better than ever, whether it acts as a trip down memory lane or a minor revelation for moody teenagers.
