Ten years in, the Faint are a) self-producing, b) on their own label, c) still letting Ticketmaster fleece their faithful, and d) as hard to hate on as they are to get excited about. I mean, these stylish Nebraskans, whose packaging always apes vintage Russian poster art, are, in terms of longevity, where Depeche Mode was when Violator came out, and Fasciinatiion is just not Violator solid. This act might have "pioneered" the re-cooling of 1980s keyboard textures in indie rock, but (like the Mode) they've stayed themselves while others ran with their inspiration into the respective electro, dance-punk, and now bloghouse, abysses. Weirdly, bands list them as an influence on press releases these days-- like, they've been lapped by hungry hosts of the very textures they reintroduced. (For proof, consult how Does It Offend You, Yeah?'s remix of this album's first single plays like a decadent, overprocessed "update".)
Genre was never their preoccupation, though, and they've openly resented their critics'/fans' synth-related comparisons/pigeonholing. The Faint play Faint songs, see, and gosh, Fasciinatiion is awful darn Fainty-- if a tad minimal and midtempo compared to their last two platters. Ever since they became a "Societal Ideas" band on Danse Macabre, you know you're going to get some clumsy, too-little-too-late jams about the Big Issues: "Get Seduced" decries cretinous nip-slip tabloidery (kind of a writ-large sequel to Macabre's anti-gossip "Let the Poison Spill From Your Throat"), while the earnest protests of "A Battle Hymn for Children" are almost condescendingly recycled: "In the name of peace we make war," etc. Its stuff about guns-as-toys and violent video games is straight out of Terminator 2, which, like the Faint, awesomely hyper-utilized machinery and digital aesthetics to warn us about the horrific dangers guaranteed by the hyper-utilization of machinery and digital aesthetics.
"Battle Hymn" is just one part of a whole suite of tracks during which frontman Todd Fink (formerly Baechle, he chivalrously "took" wife Orenda's name-- suck it, patriarchy!) attempts to, I don't know, deal with technology. "The Geeks Were Right" (pretty much sung to the tune of their classic "Agenda Suicide") already has the folks at Wired grateful for the acknowledgement of their supreme Gandalfness. The song's dread of the future sounds both rational and like a by-product of, um, getting old. The incredible ambition of "Machine in the Ghost" just makes its choral chant more painful; Fink and his mates try to reconcile, er, everything: "Let's ask the atheists, let's ask the astronauts/ Let's ask the priests! The cults! The witches! The pope!...The monks! Shaman! The nuns! Buddha! The Holy Ghost!/... Meditators, pyramids, mathematicians, acidheads, theologians,...black magicians, physicists..." etc. To be fair, Fink lands some interesting turn-of-phrase blows during the verse part, re: mortal egos wrapped up in a culture of fasco-mystical B.S., but that wack list-as-refrain ruins the song.
Let me applaud Fink for trying. Yes, bro, it is frustrating to feel like people on this planet in 2008 need to be scolded about the bad faith inherent in killing for their god-nation of choice (see "Battle Hymn"), and, man, I too mourn the absence of philosophy-as-such in the popscape, and hey, I also sometimes get tired of songs about riding on rims and boyfriends-n-girlfriends. But the Faint are sounding way out of their depth on the Important Concepts front, while seeming perfectly at home on material about relationship-muck. Both "I Treat You Wrong" and "Psycho" are standout cuts, and they're complex, knowingly ironic self-admissions to a disrespected romantic partner. "Psycho", an amendment to Lennon's "Jealous Guy" over sonics from the B-52's' debut, is also remarkable for giving mononymic guitarist Dapose something to do-- methinks he'll enact his Falco-esque running-in-place thing quite a bit on this tour.
"Fish in a Womb" is also excellent, a ballad that suggests OMD duking it out with Her Space Holiday for a prominent soundtrack slot in a cyborg-directed homage to John Hughes' oeuvre. But even it-- and Clark Baechle's refreshingly very human/analog drumming-- can't save an album whose knob-twisty aural flourishes too often sound like a catalog of simulated farts (from pinched whistlers to airy whorls to wet foghorns). Something's not as vital here-- the band sounds more committed to the songs, at the expense of the neato spazz-outs. Maybe the strangeness of being the elder statesmen of retro-futurism is weighing on them, but at this point, whole-heartedly embracing the imaginative possibilities of their inherent theatricality and campiness would be more revolutionary than preaching the occasional sermon.
