Faber Releases New Album. Music Outshines Lyrics
In the sea of emotions that is „Addio“, the latest album by Faber, could have been the overture to a new chapter. The band has achieved this – only Faber’s lyrics fall short. Last March at the Zurich Kaufleuten: a home game for Faber. Julian Pollina, better known as Faber, has a gift: he could sing the instruction manual for a range hood, and one would be captivated. That voice, that expression, that gravity. Grand opera! That’s why every Faber album begins with an overture. Including his new one, „Addio“. With a rattlesnake rattle, a choir, glissando violins, and a hoarse Morricone guitar. Faber rides into town. The applause has always preceded him. Since ten years ago when he was invited by Sophie Hunger to open for her tour, he has played in sold-out halls, especially in Germany and of course Switzerland, most recently a glorious home game at the Zurich Kaufleuten: three hours of madness, sweat, and tears. Life in all its fullness without regrets. A sea of emotions. With an eight-piece band, string players, wine glasses and cigarettes, Dino Brandão (new to the ensemble) on guitar and percussion, and a projection-drunk audience that carried Faber on a thousand hands. „Die Zeit“ hit the mark a few years ago: „He embodies the hope for a new pop macho who kicks down doors instead of knocking, and rips off bras where others struggle with the clasp.“ Well said! It is a fact: since Udo Jürgens, German-language pop music has not seen a more talented schlager star. And this is not ironic at all – unlike some of Faber’s lyrics. Magician’s charm. The entertainer Julian Pollina had already carried him around within himself when, after graduating, he worked as a wedding singer. He was in his early twenties and not as famous as his father, the cantautore Pippo Pollina. That changed in 2017 with his first album, „Be a Faber in the Wind.“ If you watch him now, as he steps onto the stage, a returnee with an unbuttoned shirt, white pants, glass in hand, and whispers into the microphone with a smile, „I am all alone, completely alone with the feeling of being alone,“ including artistic pauses, you can see even in the back row: the spotlight is his sun, the crowd his sea. It’s like Jacques Brel, Faber’s idol, when he, for French television, stammered with (feigned) pain, „Ne me quitte pas“ into the camera. Faber is a dream catcher with a great impact. A singer with magician’s charm who knows how to handle a melody so that it touches the heart. The man who can probably play Leonard Cohen’s „Avalanche“ backwards and in his sleep is even a decent guitarist. But Faber’s gifts have long disguised the fact that his lyrics are often just empty promises wrapped in gripping music. While some lines are successful ( „Zurich is no longer burning, Zurich is now shopping“), many are not ( „Why, you whore, don’t you dream of me“). At first, none of this was so important. What counted was the exertion. The bipolar madness. The feeling of the very last time. Vaudeville, Threepenny Opera, communal kitchen musical. Langstrasse love and psychopharmaceutical blues. „Bumsen,“ „ficken,“ „blasen“ were always fixed points of Pollina’s brashly lyrical self. Sometimes embarrassing, sometimes funny, mostly stupid. But in the sweaty rush of the moment, it didn’t matter that he juggled with the same images of love, madness, and a bit of social criticism. The more passionately Faber howled, the more fervently the audience sang along. Now „Addio,“ Faber’s third album, has been released on Friday. „It’s wild, I swear,“ Pollina announced the song cycle. But it is not the lyrics that are wild, but above all the music, in the sense of furious. The sound has become more complex. Nuances have been refined, arrangements tinkered with, and the rhythms are powerful. The band has matured, expanded its spectrum, and even invented a new genre: the indie-rock Afro-beat operetta! A mixed choir even sneaks melodiously into the action and, together with the titular „Addio,“ forms the centerpiece of the record: beautiful, also thanks to this sudden silence. However, it is precisely through the music that the biggest problem with „Addio“ is revealed. While the oil painting on the cover promises a Shakespearean drama, Pollina’s lyrics can rarely keep up with the band. There are lines that shine, such as in „Nocturne“ or „Deus,“ two pieces in which Pollina strips his vulnerability of pathos. But pensive sentences like „Don’t worry, have a rope for all cases / Life is a phase and the rest is hell“ contrast with phrases like „She’s not a pick-me-girl, but she fucks the world / Like in a no-parking zone, will be towed away today.“ Pollina likes to slip into roles as Faber, change perspectives, and does not shy away from terrible guys (and women) to whom he puts words in the mouth that he would not say himself. This is okay, but his protagonists are caricatures. Sometimes grotesque, sometimes flat, and sometimes unintentionally funny. Pollina skirts the biggest pitfalls, keeping his burnt fingers away from politics. He doesn’t need to do that, because provocations have never hurt him, but one wishes for more finesse and depth, more authenticity instead of self-pity. And yes, more wit and clarity, with a touch of bite and sharpness. There is no question that Faber could not wish for a better frontman than Faber. But he needs a „lyrical technician.“ Someone to help him with the writing. So that more songs like „Nocturne“ or „Deus“ are created, and Faber does not become a mere showman. At 21, a big mouth is good, but at 31, a little more would be appropriate. By the way, it is not shameful to ask for help: Stephan Eicher, Hildegard Knef, Elton John, Frank Sinatra, Udo Jürgens – they all did not write their own lyrics and worked with prominent authors. Why not? „Addio“ could have been the overture to a new Faber in the Wind, but instead, the old one is „back in town.“ He just changed the horse.