Thursday, November 23, 2017

Albums of the Year # 33 Faith Healer - Try


Edmonton duo Faith Healer put out a noteworthy album in 2015 named Cosmic Troubles. Unfortunately, despite the merits of the record itself they chose to house it in a sleeve blessed with a picture of an open mouth displaying a set of yellow and jagged lower level teeth. This was enough to put me off giving the record the attention it fully deserved though I did review it on this blog here.






Fortunately they're back this year with a new album called Try with an altogether more alluring cover which musically builds on and augments the charms of its successor. It's modern psychedelia to my ears. Try sounds like a record recorded in an echo chamber, with singer-guitarist Jessica Jalbert upfront providing a soft alluring melodic and lyrical bed for multi-instrumentalist Renny Wilson to supplement. The record is very much a piece, with the synthesisers melding perfectly with the more seventies styles of instrumentation used elsewhere. Thirty five minutes to just nod off and drift into dream.


Faith Healer are doing something pretty interesting and original here. Less in debt to the Velvet Underground than they were on Cosmic Troubles, (although there are still traces of Lou and the boys - never a bad thing in my eyes), they've moved into fresh territory with Try where influences still peek through but the overall sound is more distinctly their own. I've only discovered it in November though it came out a few months back. It's growing all over me on every listen!







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