Chris Caffery is not a stranger to anyone into heavy metal. Being the guitarist Savatage have hired and fired more than once and having connected his name with almost any Savatage related project there is like Dr. Butcher and Trans Siberian Orchestra or even Circle II Circle, his personal work cannot go unnoticed. Putting up this album included the help of some already achieved musicians: apart from Chris who also singed besides playing the guitars, Jeff Plate (Savatage, Trans Siberian Orchestra) played the drums, Paul Morris (Rainbow, Doro) played the keys and Dave Z (Trans Siberian Orchestra, ZO2) played the bass. As you can see the forces working for Faces are quite appreciable. Now to the most important part, the music itself, things are somewhat more than satisfactory. Faces sounds like a mix between Savatage (of course), Pantera and Overkill from The Killing Kind. So a proper title would be modern heavy metal with a slight thrash touch reminding of course of the Dr. Butcher project. Chris has developed a style which is really close to Criss Olivas and so the music is very Savatage related not only to soloing (listen to Preludio) but also to compositions. For example there are some bluesy tunes that definitely speak like A Handful of Rain although Chris was not a part of this album (Remember and Never). So this album synthetically starts out with a clear Savatage basis. From there several modern elements have been built upon this basis. The bio speaks of nu-metal influences among others which according to my opinion is total bullshit. No nu-metal here just some Pantera-like harsh riffs. When I finished hearing the album I had the cravings to listen to Overkills The Killing Kind cos I thought it would be a nice and appropriate follow-up. So I think that these two albums are somehow alike if that helps anyone see what I want to say. To be honest I liked this album far more than Savatages latest album Poets & Madmen. Although Faces has too many songs (16 in number), it never tires and surely gives many thrills. But how about Chriss voice? Well I am glad to say that he is simply astonishing! Great hoarse crunchy vocals that can reach a decent high level of notes, sort of like Jon Oliva! Even that special Savatage polyphony singing is used. Can it be more Savatage than that? Anyway this is an album that surely cannot disappoint. And how could it with songs like Fade into the X, Pisses me off, The mold and So far today. Hey Savatage freaks out there  dont let this slip away!,

*8.5/10