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All told, The Faint, once again, have written a succesful album.
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It's complex and distorted, but at times it's not clear why the group's energy is purposely restrained.
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The latest from these Nebraska dance rockers doesn't instantly charm like the '80s flashbacks found on 2001's breakthrough, "Danse Macabre." But its fixation on the present pays off with repeated plays as clashing guitar and keyboard hooks hammer home the Faint's central theme--the chaos of a world in conflict.
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Fasciinatiion clicks enough of the time to make it a step forward from "Wet From Birth," and despite its unevenness, at times it can be fasciinatiing.
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Mostly the fascination here is with sounds-not-songs, which is fine for the year Portishead came back, as long as the Faint have enough dial tones and farts swiped from Thom Yorke's basement tapes to deck out Fink's traditionally one-note delivery when attention wanders.
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The band plays its own game of seduction throughout the album, giving us danceable, practically glandular beats while singing lyrics of fear and loathing.
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Overall, the album--self-produced, four years in the making and the band’s first for its own label--isn’t as catchy as “Geeks,” but works reasonably well.
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While Fasciinatiion is hardly neon-coated, it's dominated by a surprising aura of playfulness: Every instrument has been fussed-over and stretched beyond recognition, resulting in an otherworldly palate of sounds that borders on comical.
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FilterDon't assume every song on Fasciinatiion is schizophrenic, navel-gazing "why-are-we-here-and-what-does-it-mean" tome. [Summer 2008, p.91]
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That Fasciinatiion isn't a revelatory departure is not to say that it is completely without merit. It is, however, undeniably lacking an air of excitement.
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Having waited four years for this new record, Faint fans anticipating a return to the throbbing mechanical heart of darkwave and disco will not be disappointed.
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The Faint are sounding way out of their depth on the Important Concepts front, while seeming perfectly at home on material about relationship-muck.
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On Fasciinatiion the band’s essence remains the same and their latest offering maintains the band’s spirit of whimsy, but there is a more serious tone all around.
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Ultimately, Fasciination has enough passable triumphs mixed in with the misfires that the album is brought to a level of acceptable fluff.
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MojoThough still in thrall to the synthetic '80s new wave ttemplate as perfected by Devo, Fasciination is nevertheless the sound of a band who've finally found the space to nail their own sound. [Nov 2008, p.119]
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Alternative PressWithout the extra bells and whisteles--which alwways saved the weakest Faint songs in the past--most of Faciinatiion is largely dispoable. [Sep 2008, p.160]
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It has great ideas brewing, but there are tons of bells and whistles in the production that upstage the songwriting, which admittedly is weaker than usual for The Faint.
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Q MagazineFasciination is supposed to sum up their entire ethos, then it is as a quasi-futuristic act wrapped in BacoFoil. [Nov 2008, p.114]
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The lyrics are nonsense about grotesque surgeries and a futuristic interface of man and machine; they’re sung with a weariness that suggests that even the singer is fatigued with this kind of thing.
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Under The RadarFor much of Fasciination, it’s the music that keeps the record afloat, because, even at his very best, singer Tim Fink doesn’t have much to say. [Summer 2008]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 14
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Mixed: 1 out of 14
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Negative: 1 out of 14
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MichelleMar 18, 2009
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dreevesNov 12, 2008
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LanceKSep 20, 2008