Revisiting: Faith Hill's Breathe

 

Breathe by Faith Hill

Release Date: 1999

Last Time I Listened to It: Hard to say, though it's been since before I first heard bands like Shadows Fall and Lamb of God, recementing my love of metal. So what are we talking here, 2004 or 2005? So it's likely been 16 or 17 years.

It's a not-so-closely-guarded secret that I've had a couple of brief flirtations with country music. The first came in eighth grade and freshman year of high school, before that balding doorknob Garth Brooks got big and country music started down its road to becoming a shitty approximation of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

My second flirtation with country music came when I was in film school. I didn't have many friends and was lonely and for some reason, having sexy women crooning country music in my ears made me feel less lonely. And they didn't come much sexier than Faith Hill.

I bought a few of Faith's CDs. I was really partial to It Matters to Me and Faith. They had a polish she'd pick up later in her career but weren't nearly as diva-riffic as some of her later efforts. Hell, I'll still find myself humming "I Can't Do That Anymore" and "This Kiss" from time to time. Did I say that out loud?

Anyways, Breathe was the first Faith Hill album I picked up and it kept me company on an awful lot of long country drive through the Utah countryside. Yeah. There are still some warm yet bittersweet memories attached to this thing for me.

The Verdict: If there's one word I could choose to describe Breathe, it's "shiny." Not in the sense that word was used in Firefly, but in the sense that every last second of this record buffed and polished to the point of gleaming perfection, like the paint job on a new sports car. Every single instrument is in the perfect place, nothing sounds more prominent than it should and on songs like the title track, the music sound positively lush. 

It's almost too perfect. The production team of Hill, Dann Huff and Byron Gallimore have created a sound that bears little resemblance to country music of the past. Even Hill's albums before Breathe don't wander this far from country and into pop territory. It's honestly pretty damn bland. Even Mutt Lange's work with Shania Twain (we'll get to her later) had a unique honk to it, as if the pop and rock elements were fighting the country elements. Nothing like that here. Everything has a sickeningly boring pleasantness to it. Even the lyrics are edgeless and inoffensive and rarely very deeply.

While the music isn't very interesting, Hill's singing is pretty terrific. Her delivery balances melody, range and power, soaring over the instrumentation like a hawk looking for a meal. Her voice is a perfect fit for the multiple ballads on the record and when she cuts loose on "Bringing Out the Elvis," she shows some personality as a performer.

Ultimately, Breathe isn't for me anymore. It's way too full of slow, sweeping tear-jerker ballads and while Hill sounds great on these tunes, they make the record feel like a slog. When the BPMs rise a bit, Breathe is pleasant, almost fun. But there aren't enough of those moments on this record. I dunno. Maybe getting back into metal warped me to a point where I'm just unable to get much out of this kind of music. But as it stands, there's not much here I like. However, if you're a lovelorn soccer mom stuck in a loveless marriage, this shit is your jam.  

Best Songs: The Way You Love Me, Bringing Out the Elvis