FAITH NO MORE's 'Sol Invictus' Sells 31,000 Copies In U.S. First Week

"Sol Invictus", FAITH NO MORE's long-awaited follow-up to 1997's "Album Of The Year", sold around 31,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 14 on The Billboard 200 chart (which includes stream activity). The CD, which was released on May 19 via the band's newly formed imprint Reclamation Recordings, which is distributed by Ipecac Recordings, also landed at No. 2 in Australia, No. 4 in Germany and No. 6 in the U.K.

FAITH NO MORE founder and bass player, Bill Gould, who oversaw the production of the album, said: "What this tells me is that there is a need out there; people want to hear things that exist outside the mold. It makes me feel grateful and it gives me hope."

Added Greg Werckman, co-owner of Ipecac Recordings: "We are honored to be a part of the FAITH NO MORE team and very proud of the success of 'Sol Invictus'. Of course, none of this would have happened without the band delivering such a fantastic record and them having faith in us to handle it properly."

Regarding FAITH NO MORE's musical approach on "Sol Invictus", Gould said: "What I can say is that I think through our experience as musicians over the years, I think what we're doing reflects where we've gone since we made our last record as FAITH NO MORE. I think this kicks things up a notch. And I think there's parts that are very powerful and there's parts that have a lot of 'space.' Everything we do, with our chemistry, the way we play; it's always going to sound like us. It's just what we do, that makes us feel good."

Gould added: "When we split up, we explored what we could do on our own. During that time, we each developed what was a natural part of ourselves. Now, coming back, we have a wider perspective so we can do things we didn't even think of back in the day. If we were to decide to do country-western music, it would still sound like a FAITH NO MORE album. Together we have a strong collective identity, and when we work together it makes its own animal."

Asked why FAITH NO MORE decided to make its first new album since 1997, despite being adamant for years that it would never happen, keyboardist Roddy Bottum told Music Feeds: "We, kind of, as a band, did a lot of shows together a couple of years ago, and it was a little bit of a coming together as friends and collaborators, and we liked being together again. And it seemed like new material was the next logical step after a bunch of reunion shows that we did. We wanted to continue doing what we do."

Added drummer Mike Bordin: "There was no intention of doing an album when we started the [reunion] shows. As Roddy said, we just tried to get together and play and, honestly, see how it felt — see how it felt to be ourselves."

Continued Roddy: "Yeah, there was a conscientious decision at one point, I remember, amongst us, backstage, kind of deciding that we really didn't wanna do any more shows just playing the old material. So we felt like the place to go was… I mean, to make ourselves feel good, we needed to make a record and make some new songs, and that's what we did. And it wasn't material that we had sitting around from before. It was all stuff that was inspired by the moment."