The Faint – Fasciinatiion
7/10

It’s always a blast when you can’t tell if it’s a person or an instrument singing. The Faint has already established itself as leaning into the wind of experimental/foreboding/futuristic pop, gracefully and unyieldingly taking the reigns over all the other shit-tastic purveyors to bring us a blindingly fresh and acerbic vision of modern music. With their fifth(!) album they’ve gone their own route, delivering Fasciinatiion on their own terms and on their own label, Blank.wav., which is something to applaud. And the same applause can go to Fasciinatiion, an intriguing and fun glimpse into a twisted and heavy world that these guys understand and portray very well. It’s pretty fun to listen to robots in unison on early standout tracks Get Seduced, The Geeks Were Right and Fulcrum And Lever; and while they’ve been said to sound more mechanic and less human on this album, it is definitely singer Todd Fink jamming with a vocoder. Lesser-known song Machine In The Ghost and Mirror Error bring out funky undertones previously hinted at, and develop The Faint’s electro-spazz sound. Each song swirls and swings into its own rhythmically powered, electronically charged and attitude-challenging poetic prose action. So the remixes at the end fit in well. Fasciinatiion is worthy of praise; Top 40-in-waiting!
Sarah

 

Posted by Nick Fulton under Album, Reviews