Saddle Creek
2004
Wet From Birth
About This Album
Since the breakout success the Faint had with 2001's Danse Macabre, the band's sound has become more mature and eclectic, as Wet from Birth, the group's fourth album, demonstrates. Relying less on overpowering synths and more on subtle electronics, prickly guitar work, and heavy, often chopped-up beats, the band sounds both more rock and more overtly electronic than it ever has before, while avoiding dated electroclash pitfalls. Though the Faint still mines the '80s for inspiration, the band seems to be moving forward, however slightly, with songs like album opener "Desperate Guys," which sets a typically Faint tale of sexual dysfunction to trilling violins, twanging guitars, and glitchy rhythms. The jabbing guitars on "I Disappear" have hints of dance-punk lurking around the edges -- which isn't really surprising, since the Faint has been influenced by new wave and post-punk since long before many of the new new wave revivalists existed -- and "Southern Belles in London Sing" enlists Azure Ray's vocals as a part of the song's fey, Baroque synth pop confection. But though Wet from Birth is the Faint's most modern and ambitious-sounding work, the album is let down too often by weak and predictable songwriting.
Track List (try tracks 1,5,6,7 and 9)

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