Faithful Breath - Fading Beauty (73)

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Although they probably qualify as one of Germany's very oldest rock bands (with roots dating back to the late '60s!), the strangely named Faithful Breath didn't become known to international audiences until the mid-'80s, when, like their significantly more famous countrymen, the Scorpions, they gained some small notoriety as a rather cheesy heavy metal group.

Centered from the beginning around guitarist Heinz Mikus and bassist Horst Stabenow, Faithful Breath went through dozens of incarnations and several musical directions before trying their hands at progressive rock in the early half of the 1970s, eventually releasing an ambitious, but commercially unsuccessful LP in 1974's Fading Beauty, when their lineup was completed by vocalist Renate Heemann, keyboardist Manfred Von Buttlar, and drummer Jurgen Weritz.

A single entitled "Back on My Hill" showed up in German record stores four years later, but by the time an album of the same name arrived in 1980, Faithful Breath had a new singer named Jurgen Renfordt, and appeared to be moving toward more straightforward hard rock as their sound of choice.

Come the next year, they'd taken it all a few steps further still, diving headlong into bombastic '80s metal, adopting an equally over-the-top (and quite inexplicable) Viking wardrobe, and jettisoning Renfordt in favor of a power trio format, with Stabenow also doubling on vocals.Four albums (1983's Hard Breath, 1984's Gold 'n' Glory, 1985's Skol, and 1986's Live) followed in quick succession, but modest sales and a short tour of the American East Coast pretty much summed up the extent of Faithful Breath's international achievements.

By 1987 the final formation of Stabenow, bassist Peter Dell, and drummer Jürgen Düsterloh gave up the Viking metal head-trip and morphed into a new band named Risk, while then second guitarist Thilo Hermann took some time, then rejoined his comrades.