When the Faint released their debut album Sine Sierra, Conor Oberst was a band member and they were known as Norman Bailer. That was nearly twenty years ago, and if that makes you feel old, imagine how the Faint must’ve felt when they went on hiatus following 2008’s Fasciination. For sullen teens who thought Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine were for jocks, the Faint's angsty, political electro-punk could've seemed like the most exciting shit imaginable, and by the time they reunited to play festivals in 2012, everyone was free to admit “Agenda Suicide” kinda kicked ass. A new album wasn’t part of the deal, but if we’re going to get one anyway, at least the title of Doom Abuse shows their heads are in the right place. They’re not here for new recruits.
Of course, that means the Faint still have to make Faint-like music, and they can’t claim any new insight to our political and socioeconomic problems. Regardless if Todd Fink has opinions on the NSA and the Crimea, as far as he’s concerned, 2014 might as well be 2004—or 1994, or 1984. During the anti-everything recitation of “Animal Needs”, Fink nasally intones, “We don’t need soap/ We don’t need straws/ We don’t need software to tell us we’re lost.” He also tells us we don’t need toilets, so...shots fired, American Standard?
The level of discourse on Doom Abuse will hit the spot for people who still think Desaparecidos’ political views are a little too nuanced. Who knows if Fink even believes half the shit he says, but his functional nihilism is an accessory not all that different than pleather pants or Commie-chic album covers: disaffection is sexy, so whether you’re batting your guyliner or rolling your eyes, it’s all part of the same outfit. As he sings at one point, “Evil voices lie when they say you’re in love!”, proving that even coupling is inextricable from shadow-government involvement.
To the Faint’s eternal credit, their sacrifice of any modicum of "cool" means the songs on Doom Abuse more fun-silly than flat-out dumb. It’s even more Faint-like than the exceedingly sui generis Fasciination, so at the least they can be forgiven for giving the people what they want. Even if they’re subject to fairly brazen ripoffs__—__there’s at least twenty different Cure riffs that are similar to the one that drives “Mental Radio”, and the XTRMNTR JR industrial agit-prop of “Animal Needs” is pretty much a verbatim copy of Primal Scream's “Swastika Eyes.”
Doom Abuse is most enjoyable when its superficial slapstick is at its most pronounced, which is most of the time__—__it’s uptempo, it’s unashamedly hooky, Fink shouts a lot, and it’s over before you can take the time to pick apart study hall manifestos like “Unseen Hand” or “Dress Code”, a 100-second shoutdown against, uh, dress codes. Doom Abuse isn’t so much an argument for the Faint’s continued relevancy as it is for the potency of their real-time nostalgia.
