Picking up on a major local buzz that attended the release of the band's self-produced three-song demo, Victory Records signed Memphis-based
Nights Like These in early 2006 and quickly released this brief but shockingly intense debut album. Clocking in at under 28 minutes, The Faithless nevertheless offers good value for the money. In fact, its brevity is something of a blessing. That's not to criticize the quality of the music, but rather to recognize that more than a half-hour of this kind of unrelieved heavyosity would be more than most normal people could handle. What distinguishes this band from the rest of the metalcore pack are the complexities that they hide just below the roiling surface of their dense, roaring sound: listen carefully to "Storming Valhalla" and you'll hear honest-to-goodness
jazz chords; try to count along with "Memento Mori" and you'll soon realize how math-y the rhythms are (and that the song spends most of its time in jig territory); and both "Ghost Town Rituals" and "Symphony for the Plague" actually flirt with a
swing feel. There are a couple of missteps, such as the song title "Destroy the Stairs" (seriously, you guys -- the stairs?) and the moment on "Bury the Messenger" when singer
Billy Bottom descends into that silly Cookie Monster From the Pit voice that 14-year-olds everywhere think is cool. But there's much more brilliance than silliness here -- and that's a rare thing to be able to say about a metalcore album. Recommended. ~ Rick Anderson, All Music Guide
