Review Summary: Romantic, melancholic, seductive. Acoustic, ethereal, lush. Sensual, beautiful and stirring. All are good words to describe The Hours' passionate search through the soul, an album inspired by the lifes and books of great authors.
All My Faith Lost is a duo from Italy who have been creating haunting music since 1999. The duo is split between a man and a woman by the name of Viola and Federico. They both contribute with the lyrics, sing all the vocals, and play multiple instruments to add emotion and depth to their music. They function extremely well with one another and exhibit plenty of talent with their respective instruments and dual vocal theatrics. With their newest album The Hours, “All My Faith Is Lost” expand upon previous ideas and create an atmospheric slab of dark folk sprinkled in classical influence. Featuring driving acoustic guitars, epic synth flourishes, lush piano and violin arrangements, and ethereal female/male vocals, All My Faith Is Lost have created a superb album that fans of different styles of music should be able to appreciate.
“The Hours” is primarily driven by acoustic instrumentation with a small but not overpowering use of synthesizers. The base of the music is very serene and never poses a sign of aggressive nature or shift in tempo as the music relies on creating slow, emotional compositions designed to captivate the listener instead of garnering movement from the crowd. Some might find this as a fault that the whole album paces along at the same beat throughout but if your tired or stressed, this is a great album to help clear your mind and take your troubles away . Viola is responsible for providing the piano, flute, and synthesizers, along with shining her soft, angelic vocals to the forefront of the music. Viola is a great vocalist displaying great emotion and depth with her small but enchanting voice that counters well with the slow musical backdrop. I’m not quite certain with who’s responsible for the violin and the cello interludes so I’ll leave it there. Federico is the man responsible for playing the acoustic guitar and providing his own vocal contributions . The dual vocals compare and contrast nicely adding a nice balance between soothing female and haunting male vocals although one tends to outshine the other as the other voice just lends a hand instead of full on trading off with one another.
The vocals and all of the instrumentation are executed near flawlessly complete with crisp production that captures the dark aura that the music tends to portray. There are not many stand out tracks, this is more like an equally balanced album filled with many solid tracks instead of three superb ones, four good songs, and two filler tracks. But if I had to go with my favorite track to recommend, it would be “Notti Bianche”. All in all, All My Faith Lost have released a splendid album that fans of folk, classical, or those in dire need of finding some great chill music can enjoy.
