Labels: Saddle Creek
Review by: Chris Gissing
A couple of people have been complaining that my reviews have been drying up again. So thought I would get a few more done, since there’s been some excellent albums recently. Oh, and I think I’ll be using one of my other domain names for reviews in future, and keep them all in one place. Right, today, I’m listening to Oregon-based The Faint and their album “Danse Macabre”.
This has actually been out in the states for about a year now, and follows their previous sex-obsessed album “Blank Wave Arcade”.
Where to begin? Well, this is the epitome of eclectic, for a start. The whole album is hung together using some ostensibly camp electro-synths, and some new-romanticist vocal work. Fold in some snatches of eighties axe-guitar work, and fundamentally intelligent lyricism and we have Danse Macabre. Let us break this work down further…
Incidentally, the album is tracklisted at the bottom of the review since the cover art renders the titles unreadable by the most bizarre font ever. First up is Agenda Suicide – a Fierce Panda single release in Early 2003. Pumping synth and ever-so-slightly camp vocals but with a very “NOW” garage-rock urgency here. Yes folks, we’re hitting the electroclash genre here. And believe me, that is no bad thing.
We soon move onwards and somehow the synths are camped up even more and are perhaps similar to the Fischerspooner output recently. What is clear, is that The Faint have the social awareness of someone like Jarvis Cocker, but with the sinister and dark air of say, Joy Division. What excites, listening to the initial part of this album, is that its “ok to like dance music again” if this is what we can now call dance music. No cheesy house or garage vocals here, just astute verbal agression, clever electronica, and a production paradigm which would be more suited to Marilyn Manson et al.
I digress. The album slows down a little by track three, Totl Job. And moves towards surreal shades of New Order, late eighties-era Nine Inch Nails, and Gary Numan mingled with these recurring electroclashesque synths. “You scream until its gone / You’re wearing out that throat” hisses the vocals on “Let the Poison Spill”. It’s also very reminicent of Mansun’s six album too. This is likely to be because both albums seem to take about five genres, as many eras within those genres and chop and splice them together into the elclectic, retro bliss that *is* Danse Macabre.
Moving on and we hit an air of Kraftwork, resplendent with a dirgesome vocoder-filled take on The Model. Clever live bass and cello work throughout stop the sterility getting to any noticable level. In fact, credit here that such a bitty and broken slice of music still sounds so very, very organic. The production genuinely adds to the quality here, which is refreshing to hear.
Heading towards the end of the album, the final fanfare takes the form of the sinister vocoder based bleepings of “Violent” and “Ballad Of A Paralysed Citizen”.
And nine tracks just doesnt seem enough. Mind you, the new UK release of this comes with a bonus CD of remixes, so at least we get better value for money here.
It’s synth-pop, its punk, it’s new wave, it’s the music from an eighties computer game. It’s awesome.