The Daily Spin, February 9
Faust | IV
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: IV (1973)
Artist: Faust
Link:
I wish I had more to say about this album in either direction, really. Despite it being more than an hour, despite it being so highly regarded by a bevy of well-known and well-loved musical publications, I felt like, at heart, IV missed my marks.
It feels a lot like Faust grabbed two or three or four genres at random from a bag, threw them into a song, and spat out whatever the result was - often to varying success. At best, they’re enjoyable enough, I suppose, but most of the time I wind up feeling like it just doesn’t work out - anarchist they may be in name, but it’s a sentiment that I think translated woefully to this album.
Pitchfork described it as inherently Faustian, in a sense - all to their own - and I completely agree with that sentiment, though I disagree with their rating. They close the opening paragraph of their review with the following: BE PRETTY/CATCHY/DISTURBING.
Of those three, I think IV was far too much the last.
Rating: 5.8/10
Best Tracks: Piano Piece
Worst Tracks: The Sad Skinhead