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Fasciinatiion

by The Faint

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The Faint are set to release their first album in four years ''Fasciinatiion'' through their own, newly-formed label, blank.wav. ''Fasciinatiion'', The Faint's fifth album, is the first in the band's ten-year history to be written, recorded, produced, art directed and released entirely on their own. ''Fasciinatiion'' is an album that draws on many defining facets of The Faint's sound, while remaining completely different from anything else they've put out. A record whose themes include predictions and the future, tabloid culture, the allure of what may never be, childhood lost and more, ''Fasciinatiion'' sounds as if it's been beamed in from a satellite whose sole purpose is observing, and making sense of, the details of every day existence. In certain ways, the album is the most mechanical and precise of the band's work: The vocals sounds less human than ever before; the bass lines are more mangled, keyboards spiral and squeal out of control; electronic pings and stabs invade the melodies; the lyrical anxiety and disdain of previous albums pervades almost every song on ''Fasciinatiion''. Opener ''Get Seduced'' is The Faint at their best, the song's critique of celebrity culture matched with one of the finest choruses they've ever written. First single, ''The Geeks Were Right'', draws on the tenets of futurist literature and sliding, siren-call guitars. ''Fulcrum and Lever'' marries ambient noise with space references, alienation and a stuttering, flexing beat, while ''Mirror Error'' explores identity and consciousness within its perfect, propulsive electro-pop. Closer ''A Battle Hymn for Children'' flinches with nervous rhythms against resentment of the future to be inherited and keyboards that sound like flailing voices (or is it flailing voices that sound like keyboards? On ''Fasciinatiion'', one can never tell).