Faithful Breath – Skol Review

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It’s funny how we have thoughts about bands and album we are to review. I don’t if it’s the experience or the zillion bands we’ve reviewd and listened, but we do have some feelings about them before we begin to review them. The moment I played “Skol” in my Winamp I felt that Faithful Breath were kind of the real deal as they sound a lot as the great Keel – do you know Keel, my child of the night. Shame on you if you don’t. hehehehehehe Just kidding, my dear fan. Here nobody’s obliged to anything.

The press release informs us that this is a re-release of the 1985’s “Skol” and, as I mentioned above, it’s pretty noticiable that it belongs to that time. I mean by the very first seconds of the album the fan notices that this is the real deal. The mood is very much the golden years of Heavy Metal and it’s a softer version the Hard’n’Heavy. “Skol” travels for both ways with a great deal dose of emotion and anthemic choruses as in the last, but not least, and title track “Skol.” There the fan will find a strong chorus repeated by the guitar which reinforces the power and states the general mood of the song. The album does a curious journey from the first track “Start It Up” until “Skol.” The motto of Faithful Breath is strong guitar riffings with furious guitar solos and deeply rooted anthemic choruses. This way of making Metal was a trademark of many German bands in the 1980s. It’s not wrong to say that they can be called Teotonic Metal. The track “Rock Rebels” tells this story very well with a sticky guitar riffing and full of emotion vocals chanting the warcry “We are the rock brothers. C’mon let’s be together.” Not only a warcry, but an invitation to the fight. But “Skol” bounces all the time with this lineage and the Hard’n’Heavy and this song kind of represents both the way I see it. Also the way Faithful Breath use their guitar phrases to build up their songs is just amazing. This kind of approach makes the songs more emotional with a great deal of sorrow as in “We Want You.”

In general I appreciate this kind of re-release. It’s an oportunity to know bands that could be there, but for some reasons couldn’t get there to all of us. Faithful Breath “Skol” is one of them.

Faithful Breath “Skol” will be released on january 22nd via High Roller Records.

Track Listing:

  1. Start It Up
  2. Double Dealer
  3. Lady M.
  4. Rock Rebels
  5. We Want You
  6. Inside out
  7. Crazy in Metal
  8. Backstreet Heros
  9. Skol

Watch “Skol” official video here: