The 1981 Listening Post - Faithful Breath - Rock Lions [1]

 Reviewed by Tom Mott

Released: 1981 Faithful Breath Rock Lions [1] Genre: Hard Rock Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: [2] Hurricane Rock City No Time This starts really strong --- they're ready to rock! This is straight up hard rock, or hard bluesy rock, sorta pointing the way towards Guns'n'Roses but without that extra sprinkling of fairy dust and personalities that pushed Guns'n'Roses over the top. This isn't metal. It's definitely very good hard rock. Not great hard rock, but good. They don't "move the needle forward" ... but that's not what's asked of genre bands is it? I mean, I love garage bands, and 99% of them stay in their lane and just crank out the music they love. Speaking of genres and staying in your lane, I think it's of note that alongside the various styles of synth-pop, post-punk, new wave, and melodic rock that were percolating at the time, both NWOBHM and hip-hop were bubbling up in 1981. A chunk of rockers were moving into metal, and a chunk of funksters were moving into hip-hop. I think only two full rap albums came out in 1981, and they were both second albums: Kurtis Blow's "Deuce," and Sugarhill Gang's "8th Wonder." But by 1988 or '89, Headbangers Ball and Yo MTV Raps seemed to be pretty much all you could find on MTV, alongside 120 Minutes "college rock." Who knew? Sugarhill Gang's 1981 album has at least three really solid 7+ min funk-rap jams on it, including the bonafide dance classic "Apache" (even though my 2023 sensibilities cringe-laugh at "Tonto! Jump on it!" and the war cries). [3] Back to Faithful Breath, it's not bad, it's good, it's very good in places, it doesn't touch greatness, but it chugs along with shouted choruses and definitely has a solid fan base. No Time starts with a fun Trampled Underfoot riff but veers into more standard rock fare for the rest of the song. ********** 1. The BAND name is Faithful Breath. The ALBUM name is Rock Lions. It seems with 1981 heavy metal/hard rock bands, it's hard to know which is the band name and which is the album name. It makes me wish for the hat tricks of simpler times: Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath" on "Black Sabbath," and Bad Company³ (band, album, song). 2. My highlights are graded on a curve: the best songs on THIS album. 3. Those Apache bongos! Sampled from the 1973's Incredible Bongo Band album, which was a studio band put together for The Thing with Two Heads and featured various session players including Jim Gordon from Derek and the Dominoes. The Incredible Bongo Band's first single was a cover of Bongo Rock, co-written by legendary L.A. disc jockey Art Laboe. What a rabbit hole to go down!

The 1980 Listening Post - Faithful Breath - Back On My Hill

 Reviewed by Stephen Romone Lewis

Released: 1980 Faithful Breath Back On My Hill Genre: They Say Prog/Hard-Rock Rating: 3 out of 5 Highlights: Die Mörderbiene (Ed. Note: This is a bonus track on the 2007 re-issue) I love me some prog. This has some sweet, moogy sounding synths. There is an abundance of key and GTR solos. Solos contain some tasty licks but lack the technical proficiency of top shelf progsters. No weird time signatures or interesting tonal exploration and only one 17 minute epic, so not proggy enough for me. There are some nice harmonies, but the lead singer sounds like he’s auditioning for a part in Pippin. My favorite tune was Die Mörderbiene, the only one sung in German. It’s in 6/8, has some shifting tempos that held my interest and a nice synth solo in the style of early Styx. I wouldn’t call this hard/rock but that’s the way they are labeled on YouTube. According to the only bio I could find they started in Germany in the late 60s playing rock. Over the course of many personnel changes, they morphed into a watered-down prog outfit and went full hard-rock in ‘85. Absolutely nothing bad about anything on this LP. Also nothing to get excited about either.