Going by the vaguely threatening black-and-white Herbert Matter image used for the cover, Andy Stott must be up to his old sinister tricks on Faith in Strangers. Indeed, none of the nine tracks on his third proper album could be described as radiant or zesty. They're duly eldritch, similar in feeling to the producer's 2011-2012 releases. No sound is particularly soothing. Leaden continues to be the prevailing tempo. Vocalist Alison Skidmore remains at Stott's side, or perhaps somewhere behind him, leering from an unlit corner. Despite a radical switch from digital to analog gear, the album is as bleak and as bracing as Luxury Problems. Stott coaxes his harshest and gentlest sounds yet, sometimes within the same track. "Violence" swings between subdued tones and beats that deal out drubbings until they're driven into scraping, mangled noise. Multiple Skidmore vocal tracks, gently cloaked over one another, add to the menace. Some tracks, such as "How It Was" and "Damage," are gnarled and abrasive enough to send listeners on troubleshooting missions. In social settings, they're liable to clear a floor of conservative clubbers as expediently as any of the more challenging work by Hieroglyphic Being or Ekoplekz. On the more accessible end, there are a couple tracks that could be classified as songs. "Science and Industry" skitters and clanks, fraught with tension like an early release from Stott's hometown Factory label, while the title track was seemingly inspired by the same late-'70s/early-'80s post-punk era, guided by a plump, slaloming bassline. Additionally, Stott leaves Skidmore's vocals relatively untreated on them and thereby allows her to sound more human, from a slight crackup to sweetly melodic phrasings that function as warming glints through the darkness. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi

1		Time Away
2		Violence
3		On Oath
4		Science and Industry
5		No Surrender
6		How it Was
7		Damage
8		Faith in Strangers
9		Missing

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