The Faint
Danse Macabre
Saddle Creek
Two albums ago, The Faint was nothing but another skate-rat rock outfit who easily could
have gone unnoticed in the what-seemed-unlikely musical hotspot of Omaha, Neb. It wasn't until after its first full-length, Media, that the band decided to hire a full-time synth player and start recording with fewer guitars, a drum machine and, occasionally, a vocoder.
The result was 1999's Blank-Wave Arcade, an album loaded with style, hooky
keyboards and New Wave sensibility. Masterfully done, it can have you dancing around like Joan Cusack in a John Hughes film. It's a synth-pop album so good you could almost forgive the sometimes incredibly stupid lyrics.
While Blank-Wave Arcade decorated itself in sex-obsessed lyrics, the group’s latest release, Danse Macabre, is decidedly darker. Singer Todd Baechle sounds like an affected Robert Smith while speaking of death, suicide, murder and violence, trading in Blank-Wave Arcade's Duran Duran for Depeche Mode and Gary Numan.
Despite the disturbing themes — in the Soft Cell-ish "Posed to Death," Baechle muses, "I called you toward the staircase/and I caused your violent end" — the sound is still fun and sexy. Baechle can moan his way through the album.
"Agenda Suicide" and "Glass Danse" are fierce album openers, with loads of dance-hall bass
lines and a mechanical precision from drummer Clark Baechle. Off the record and into
the dance hall itself, the band’s studio work easily matches its live performances, which have
audiences tossing, swaying and dancing together while the band performs among the
excesses of 1980s rock music — smoke machines, strobe lights and facial make-up.
In the end, The Faint may merely be a band of aesthetics, devoid of any true cultural weight. But listening to either of the band's last two outings, it doesn’t really matter, because The Faint is so good at creating a fun diversion from the daily grind — Danse Macabre diligently provides 35 minutes of escape, something of an immeasurable success.
— Jennifer Pfafflin (pfafflin at students dot wisc dot edu)
