YOU KNOW FAUST

With Faust now being back in action after their 1994 release of Rien, the stage was set for more avant-garde rock affairs. 1997 was a particularly big time to be a Faust fan, as that year they released two studio albums and a live album, something you might not fully expect from a legacy group like Faust. These three releases include Faust Wakes Nosferatu, Edinburgh 1997, and the record I will be reviewing today, You Know FaUSt. Sadly, though, one of these three banquets of krautrock supremacy aren't as good as their companies, and if you see the rating for this review then you might know what that album is.

You Know FaUSt is in many similarities with its predecessor of Rien, being a mix of more industrial rock workings mixed with krautrock, however it plays a more Faust Tapes swing of things, as opposed to Rien's more debut feel. I say this as less of an optimistic point of light, as I find this album to be very dissatisfactory.

Starters, there are a lot of filler tracks that muddies up this album. Whilst Faust Tapes were forgivable in that regard as it was practically a compilation of demos and tracks Faust made, I find You Know FaUSt to be very much less forgiving in that department since now these short snippets of noise are here as a deliberate choice from the band, and not by some company. I have said this before, but I dislike the more musique concrète side of Faust, unless the musique concrète is utilized within a song without muddying it up too much, like what they did on the first LP. I personally prefer the actual krautrock stuff, the interesting jams, and the psychedelic affairs; the stuff that makes Faust such a strong krautrock band for me. Whilst you do certainly get such, you are more likely to encounter these short winded experiments before you get into the real meat and potatoes this album may hold.

Speaking of such, the meat and potatoes here are pretty weak. If you do not count the short experiments, you get 10 whole tracks to go through, and each of them are certainly good but a bit?by numbers, which is very odd for Faust. While they may be a bit newer in scope as they now have a more industrial, and sometimes more shoegaze type feel, they feel just like stuff they have been doing for a long time now, to where I feel like they are a bit washed up. For example, the big jam on here, Na Sowas, is a pretty good track, but it feels kind of like a carbon copy of Listen To The Fish rather than an actual original song. A loud krautrock jam that dips into droning ambience, but without really the style and grace that Listen To The Fish gave.

Additionally some of the faults of the tracks may be due to the mixing, as the mixes on these tracks are a bit too loud and noisy. The 90s marked the start of records in rock being a lot noisier, and not in a noise rock kind of way. This loudness war, as people dubbed it, only really peaked in the early 2000s with groups like Rush getting a bit of a short end of the stick in regards to the volume of the mixes. Faust here definitely got that short stick too, as each song feels like they should not be so noisy. I mean, listen to Teutentango for example, it is just very poorly mixed and so noisy that I can barely think. Each song here feels like they shouldn't be so loud, but they simply just are for no real reason other than loud?rocking albums were pretty hot at the time with nu metal and grunge being at an all time high. There is a remedy to this though, and it is Cendre, which is a pretty great track on here. You never quite hear an acoustic song on a Faust album, so having one, even here, is a nice change of pace. Plus I think it's a pretty song.

Honestly if this album was just a tad worse I might be willing to give it a 1.5 or lower, but even with noise complaints most of the actual songs are pretty good. The title certainly doesn't lie, I do know Faust with this record, and that is the problem. I do not want to know Faust when I listen to an album of theirs. I want to hear something new that they've been cooking up, and not repeats of stuff they know how to cook up. I don't want to know Faust, I want to experience Faust, and You Know FaUSt doesn't give me the true Faust experience I am looking for. Certainly, Faust must've felt the same way, as later records prove they themselves don't want to know Faust. I definitely advise skipping this one if you are interested in Faust's 90s catalog, as their other works that decade are a lot better.

Best tracks: Cendre, Liebeswehen 2, Hurricane

Worst tracks: Irons, Elektron 2, L'Oiseau