Faith

Faith is the third studio album by English rock band the Cure, released on 17 April 1981 by Fiction Records. The album saw the band continuing in the gloomy vein of their previous effort Seventeen Seconds (1980). This stylistic theme would conclude with their next album Pornography (1982). Preceded by the single "Primary", the album was well-received by critics and was a commercial success in the UK, peaking at number fourteen on the UK Albums Chart and staying on the chart for eight weeks. Background Following the tour for Seventeen Seconds, the Cure returned to Morgan Studios on 27 September 1980 to record a new album, minus Matthieu Hartley, who had departed due to disagreement with the musical direction of the band. During this session, recordings of songs "All Cats Are Grey" and "Primary" were attempted, but neither ended up on the album. Robert Smith was hoping the tracks would sound "funereal", but instead he said "they just sounded dull". Several other studios were tried: Red Bus, Trident, The Roundhouse and Abbey Road. Much of Faith was written in the studio. Tolhurst says: "“We had been on the road constantly, switching between recording an album and touring.” At least two songs on the album, "All Cats Are Grey" and "The Drowning Man", were inspired by the Gormenghast novels of Mervyn Peake. Faith was the first album by the Cure to feature a six-string bass guitar; "All Cats Are Grey" (for which drummer Laurence Tolhurst has claimed a rare lyric-writing credit) features Smith on keyboards and piano, with no guitar at all.