Search - Faust :: Concerts 2

Single-Minded Reunion

Robert Carlberg | Seattle | 02/03/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Faust at their formation and for the first few LPs was a band of extreme contrasts: light vs. dark, quiet vs. loud, pretty vs. ugly, accomplished vs. flailing, concise vs. extravagant. When they disappeared in 1974 they left a singular and iconoclastic legacy, suitable for building legends and remembering fondly.



When they unexpectedly reformed in 1990, based around only two original members, the new formation emphasized only half of the Faust legacy to the exclusion of the other half. The numerous live and semi-live albums since then have been uniformly dark, loud, ugly, flailing and extravagant.



Sometimes this formula works, as in the soon-to-be-released 2005 live Newcastle Carling Academy set which develops a sort of inevitable momentum which carries the listener into their madness. More often the formula does not work very well, as in these 1992 London and 1990 Hamburg sets which could charitably be described as listener endurance tests, the kind of thing the FBI might play to try to force religious cults to surrender.



Some of us old Faust fans continue to buy the reformations, but without much joy."