THE FAINT FASCIINATIION ALBUM BLANK.WAV RELEASE: SEPTEMBER 5, 2008 REVIEW: SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

The Faint like to tweak things: virtually all of singer Todd Fink's vocals, any acoustic or electronic sounds present on their fifth album are distorted, modified and off-kilter just like the title. Their funky rock sound is spattered with bleeps and noises from the digital scrapyard. 

Nevertheless, the prevailing impression of "Fasciinatiion" is of mellow, baseline driven college rock with quirky and stupid titles like "Machine in the Ghost" and "Forever Growing Centipedes". The digital dressing gives the music a certain freshness on the surface, but inevitably its inherent old fashioned character comes through. Several tracks ("Psycho, "The Geeks Were Right") have the strong hooks of potential floor fillers, but most of them cannot stand alone underneath the electro punk confetti. 

MATTIAS HUSS