REVIEW: New Faith demo

In spite of what some people might tell ya about the 90's, the very middle of the 1990's was a exciting for me when it came to NYHC (NJ was, by and large, a different story, at least for another year or so). A lot of the bands that came up in the Bond Street Cafe days seemed to be getting it together more, Striving For Togetherness Records started putting out a bunch of 7"s (as far as I'm concerned, NYHC 's perfect format is the 7", and totally apart from the endless debate about vinyl becoming "obsolete", I still think any resurgence of NYHC HAS to include a resurgence of the NYHC 7"--- no fucking joke!), a lot of the older bands seemed actively interested in staying fully functional, and even some of the north jersey hardcore bands were pretty good (I'm thinking here of early One 4 One and the like). Unfortunately, I guess I typically route for the underdog and the bands I was most partial to weren't the ones that made it to the top of the hardcore scene...).

But at that time if you would have asked me who I thought the two best, new NYHC bands were, I would have told you the Down Low and New Faith. Both had a fast, heavy NYHC sound that took a lot of cues from the past, kept it raw and short. They had a bit of a metal crunch (which is typical of NYHC), but live, by and large they kept the metal to a minimum. The bands were related, but faced different fates. The Down Low kept it going on and off for a number of years (Guillotine did a nice split with the Down Low and Against the Grain, and Tommy Rat reissued their great demo on his Free Spirit Records some years later). New Faith was basically the same band, from what I remember, albeit with Rat Bones replacing Joey Down Low on vocals. Both bands played some slamming sets back to back at that big NYHC "benefit show" early September '95 at Coney Island High the same day as the infamous Beer Olympics riots.



New Faith put out a very promising demo, with Rat Bones credited in the liner notes, although the vocal duties were actually shared by Joe V and the bass player, since Rat Bones was locked up on Rykers Island (the prison off the shore of the Bronx for you non-New Yorkers) when they recorded the demo. It got a great review in the pages of In Effect after it was released, but they were virtually unheard from afterwards. It was only a few years later when I interviewed Joe V and Joey Down Low in Tompkin's Square Park (the night before Joey had to go in to serve his own stint at Ryker's for some indiscretion or other) that I got the scoop on what happened with New Faith. That was a trip in itself-- a lot of shit happening in the park that night. I'll try to post it up sometime. Seems that the band had actually been in existence in one form or another since 1988, and after the demo, they continued without Rat Bones and went on to record an LP in 1998 at Joe's own home studio, Bullet Broof Studios. That is, until some untrustworthy buddy took off with the studio's equipment and the New Faith tapes, leaving only some rough mixes behind.

Recently Joe V moved to LA and is carrying on New Faith and made the ill-fated, unreleased LP available as a demo version, which is what we've got here, and it's a shame they never got to finish it. It's a much fuller recording, with loud, blown out guitars a la Rest in Pieces, but with some faster, two-step punk riffs like early Cause For Alarm. As far as I'm concerned, songs like "Urge," "Real Trick," "American Trash," and "Visualize" which are re-recorded from the demo, are some great NYHC. Some of the tracks I wasn't familiar with like "Wuz" and "One Way Street" are pretty decent as well. All in all, these sessions sound like they were pretty close to completion and could definitely stand alone as a really good demo. It's definitely got a better sound quality than the original demo, even though the raw sound of that tape had its charm. The vocals typically come off real gruff in a style a bit like Kevin Crowley of the Abused, but in a couple places it's just a bit too gutteral-- the opportunity to fix some of those spots would have rounded out the songs nicely. If they would have had the chance to work on this some more, fixed up some of the tracking here and there, mixed it properly, and mastered it so that the drums and bass would have come out in the recording a bit, they might have indeed come up with a truly great NYHC record.



The good news is that they're continuing in LA, so perhaps Joe V will have the opportunity get the New Faith stuff a proper release. Hopefully they'll stay close to the sound they took off with and today's recording technology won't overproduce these tracks 'cause it would be some good vindication if New Faith is rescued from obscurity.

New Faith on myspace