CD Reviews

The Faint

Fasciinatiion | Blank.wav

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | August 12, 2008

1.5 Stars

Four years after their last long-player, the Faint have built their own studio and created their own record label. If this release is to be understood as the end result of that labor, then it was all in the service of finally being able to revel in Carl Stalling–esque squiddly-dee nonsense without feeling compelled to make the tracks amenable to cyborg dance-floor bump ’n’ grind. “The Geeks Were Right” sounds like Franz Ferdinand in the midst of a free show at a tech conference when, unannounced, a soused Bill Gates and Steve Jobs bum-rush the stage and bleat triumphant raspberries through a thousand sleekly designed vocoders. “Fulcrum and Lever” is like a beat-tripping nightmare of bad talk-singing and pointless synth stabs, but its crunk-friendly thump guarantees that someone out there will concoct a sick Faint-versus-Ying-Yang-Twins mash-up. The lyrics are nonsense about grotesque surgeries and a futuristic interface of man and machine; they’re sung with a weariness that suggests that even the singer is fatigued with this kind of thing. There are still inspired moments that make you want to flip your hair back and jump into the fray, like the bouncy “Mirror Error,” with its sing-songy chorus, but for the most part, I close my eyes and it’s as if I were at a party where they’re endlessly playing “Dead or Alive” while some guy next to me mumbles nonsense in my ear and some kid in the corner hits random keys on a Juno.

Related: Slideshow: The Faint + Ladytron at House of Blues, Lil Mama, A different Empire, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Franz Ferdinand, More

| More

ARTICLES BY DANIEL BROCKMAN

THE CULT SURVIVES ROCK'S HIGHS AND LOWS | May 31, 2012
There is a difference between an unknown musical artist and a superstar, and that difference isn't necessarily musical — it's mythological.

RAZORMAZE ADDS FOCUS TO THEIR THRASH | May 15, 2012
For a kind-of goofy metal dude, Alex Citrone is pretty serious — especially when he talks metal, and especially when he's talking about his band, Boston shred titans Razormaze.

ZAMBRI | HOUSE OF BAASA | May 15, 2012
For those of us of a certain age who remember when school dances had a strict four-fast-songs-then-one-slow-one policy, the memory of bouncing around to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" with the anticipation of "One More Night" or "Take My Breath Away" still makes our palms sweat with hormonal anxiety.

CONFRONTING THE SWEDISH GLOOM OF IN SOLITUDE | May 08, 2012
When I am finally able to get through to the cell phone of In Solitude's tour manager, they have emerged from a massive dust cloud, their metal-mobile finding civilization after a long spell traversing the deserts of Arizona with no idea where they are going.

[R.I.P.] ADAM YAUCH AND THE BEASTIE BOYS | May 08, 2012
ADAM YAUCH, a/k/a MCA, was likely inspired to pen those words, that appear in a tossed off couplet in the middle of what would wind up being one of the band’s final singles, by his immersion in the world of illness.