Here's a quick heads up for all y'all New Wave revivalists out there: The Faint (MySpace) have a new album coming out in August, and have just released a track from the album to whet fans' appetite for speaker-bangin' synthetic goodness!
Just in case you've been living in a cave or in suspended animation for the last decade, The Faint have been around since 1998, when they released their first album, Media, on Nebraska's indie superstar label Saddle Creek. Though that debut album was a decent exercise in straightforward post-punk rock, the band really hit its stride and began to define its sound with 1999's Blank Wave Arcade, which featured more synths and clearly indicated that though The Faint were obviously inspired by early-80s New Wave acts like The Comateens, Ultravox, and Eurythmics, they were a forward-looking band with their MIDI cables plugged into the future, not a "retro" act as some claimed. The group's 2001 breakthrough album Danse Macabre and 2004's Wet From Birth were massive, furious blasts of electro-punk that lit up dancefloors across the nation. But then...they just sort of...well, vanished for the last four years.
But now they're back, and if their lead single from the forthcoming album Fasciinatiion (to be released on their new independent label blank.wav ) is any indication, they're picking up right where they left off. "The Geeks Were Right" is a thundering, bass-heavy assault of grimy synths, grungy guitars, and skull-pounding beats populated with Todd Baechle's trademark tongue-in-cheek lyrics. "They've got modified features and software brains / but that's what the girls like / the geeks were right" pretty much sums up and lampoons the new century's cultural triumph of the nerd without resorting to typical indie-rock "irony." The jam is strong with this one, folks.
I'll be reviewing the entire album soon, but for now, "The Geeks Were Right" should be on your playlist right now.
The Faint have a massive tour coming up, too, with dates all over the map--including Europe.
Links:
thefaint.com
myspace.com/thefaint
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