The Faint - Fasciinatiion

Yes! Another album by The Faint, Fasciinatiion. But don't get excited yet, there are a few ups and downs when it comes to this one. It feels like Todd Fink gathered up the whole band and was like "Okay guys, let's make another album, except this time make the guitars as scratchy and annoying as possible. Oh yeah, and make sure the keyboard is really quiet so no one can hear it." To which they replied 'Yeah! That'll be so cool and awesome!" Basically, If you're thinking of getting this album because you want to listen to some intense new wave electronic punk action that The Faint is known for, then you might wanna reconsider. Fasciinatiion fails to deliver that electronic, dancable The Faint style of new wave found in Danse Macabre and Blank Wave Arcade. To be blunt, the biggest let down is the overdone scratchiness of the guitar, but not scratchiness in like a good 90's grunge band kind of way. Like in a hey, this band sucks kind of way. We all know the faint can do some cool things with a guitar. The thing is they just didn't take advantage of it, instead they came up with this scratchy nonsense. The album starts out promising, it's just so awesome listening to "The Geeks Were Right" for the first time. The steady acceleration of the vocals and guitar gets you so pumped up. And hearing Fink's voice in something new is really refreshing. Then there's "Get Seduced" which is a complete exception to the rest of the album in that it's very easy to dance to, and features The Faint's signature mix of crazy bass somehow fluently mixed in to the scratchy synthesized electronics. After listening to the first couple of songs which are pretty up to standards, you expect it to just get better and better, and that's where things begin to dissapoint. The decrease in quality as the album progresses is clear, and on a side note it becomes pretty annoying listening to that friggin geiger counter every time you want to listen to "A Battle Hymn For Children." And the song is basically just talking with some wierd sound effects thrown in anyway. Songs like "Mirror Error", "I Treat You Wrong" and "Forever Growing Centipedes" are catchy a few times, but again that guitar is simply awful, and not in The Faint style at all. Plus, they get old pretty fast and aren't that exciting after like, the fifth listen. It's really hard to imagine any of it being "dance music" like most of The Faint's stuff. As in, the thought of people dancing to a slow talking song about a kid who falls off a roof is a pretty ridiculous image. To be completely honest, alot of it is pretty good despite the above points, but it's just not something you would expect The Faint to put out. All we can do for now is forget this little blip and hope that whatever they put out next will bring back those nostalgic feelings of earlier albums. Well, that pretty much raps it up, I suppose every good band has to have that one record that's just "meh" and it was bound to happen to them eventually.



-Charbar