Keep the Faith

Keep the Faith reintroduces Bon Jovi after almost four years of side projects and hiatuses. The musical climate shifted considerably in that time, and this fact hadn't been lost on the band. Faith blatantly brings to the surface the Bruce Springsteen influence that was always lurking in Bon Jovi's sound and uses it to frame Faith's more serious cast of the band's established pop-metal groove. "I Believe" and "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" amp up the blue-collar gospel revivalist feel of Springsteen's "Tunnel of Love," dropping in triumphant power chord changes to ensure arena readiness. But Bon Jovi also took a page from Springsteen's Big Book of Epic Songwriting, padding Faith's center with ambitious balladry and a nearly ten-minute story-song that wouldn't be out of place as a full-album-side, '70s rock experiment. Elsewhere, hit single "Bed of Roses" wisely aims for the verdant adult contemporary pastures pointed to by Bryan Adams with 1991's "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," instead of gripping stupidly to the Aqua-Netted mane of glam rock power balladry. Later experiments with straightforward hard rock falter, since they don't sizzle like the band's vintage material and fall flat next to more inspired material like "In These Arms." But while miles of open highway separate the songwriting of Jon Bon Jovi and his mates from that of Springsteen, Keep the Faith deserves plenty of points for ambition, and it does succeed in updating the band's sound, even if the replacement parts were bought used.