Helena Johanssen – Faith

“A confident and powerful statement of YES.”

Tom: Ooh, is it—

Tim: I’ll stop you and your immediate predictability there, and inform you that no, it’s not a George Michael cover. A Swedish lady instead, with a song all of her own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuONKC4NWpo

Tom: That’s one of the best introductions I’ve heard in a while.

Tim: It is yes – it just starts and never stops, does it? A nice example of a track where the lyrics and music go together perfectly – it’s a declaration of self, a confident and powerful statement of YES.

Tom: It works so well: this is a damn good track.

Tim: Everything WILL be great, because we have FAITH. Which I suppose is alright, really. You might want to doubt the reality of it, because if faith is all you need then judging by the number of X Factor hopefuls that say “I really really know I can do this” we’d be able to do a track every hour.

Tom: It could be worse: it could be the nauseating (sometimes literally) No Matter What, the ultimate expression of denying reality.

Tim: Yes, that’s true. Either way, let’s not go down that route because it would spoil the essence of the song, and I don’t want to do that because it’s such a great track.

Tom: And as for the music: listen to that drumbeat. No four-on-the-floor here: that’s sometimes disastrous, but here it just works so well. It’s a testament to her voice that she’s able to compete with instrumentation that compelling.

Tim: That production underneath is just excellent – I genuinely don’t think I can fault it, so good work to everyone involved.

Tom: I’m quite happy that 90s-esque synth pads seem to be back in fashion, too, even if they’re buried deep in the mix.

Tim: Excellent. All happy then.