The Faint: Danse Macabre

 The Faint: Danse Macabre

2001

Saddle Creek Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Agenda Suicide  2. Glass Danse  3. Total Job  4. Let the Poison Spill from Your Throat  5. Your Retro Career Melted  6. Posed to Death  7. The Conductor  8. Violent  9. Ballad of a Paralysed Citizen


Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. Between hanging out at hospitals and getting ready for a big move, the blog just wasn't happening in December and I doubt I'll be back in the swing of it until late January. But I'm hoping to fully re-immerse myself in cold beer, loud records and white-knuckled blogging in 2017. After all, the Friday Night Record Party is now entering its fifth year, so my goal is to make this the best year yet. And to kick off this year of awesomeness, I'm going to quickly half-ass a post on some largely forgotten early 2000's dance-rock album in-between loads of laundry...

(P.S.This is a photo of laundry I stole from another website. My actually dirty laundry is much bloodier and full of holes.)

(alternate cover featuring a still from Ric Ocasek's acclaimed performance of Swan Lake)

My good friend Russ got me into this band. It was always pumping out of his car stereo back in 2001-2002, and I dug it instantly. It sounded like a darker Duran Duran. Like if "The Chauffeur" was Duran Duran's starting point rather than an outlier. I think they used to be an emo band or something (I still haven't heard their first album) but switched to this dancier direction on their 1999 album, "Blank Wave Arcade" (which I don't own but have heard and enjoy very much).

This album has a fantastic opening track, "Agenda Suicide" that is a masterpiece of synthpop menace. Despite parts of it sounding exactly like Genesis' "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight," the song brings to mind a hooligan version of Duran Duran roaming the streets after midnight, glowering through your suburban window. I remember this song just blowing the doors off of other similar dance-rock shit that was glutting the new release shelf during the 2000's. Nothing came close. The pinnacle of 2000's dance rock, hands down.

Perfect opening tracks are a double-edged sword however. Sure I was drawn in immediately and pledged my undying allegiance to this band within five seconds of hearing the album, but there's also nothing that quite lives up to this song on the album, although the entire album comes pretty damn close. There are no bum tracks here and some of them come very close to re-capturing "Agenda Suicide"'s glory...

Other highlights include "Posed to Death" and "The Conductor." I effing love "The Conductor." Now, this is going to be hard to imagine, but picture Marilyn Manson delivering a truly great song. A pitch black metallic stomp that alternates between robot verses and a humanistic (and mightily) anthemic chorus. They definitely tap into something awesomely malevolent on this track. Always gets me pumped. 
 
Really, the whole damn thing rules and makes me want to dance (in as cool and detached a manner as possible). If you're into the seedier side of 80's new wave (Gary Newman, Soft Cell, the aforementioned darker side of Duran Duran) you'll go nuts over this. They really do distill everything that was great about all that old stuff and turn it into something new(ish)...

Let's listen to some much...Here's "Agenda Suicide" by The Faint. Enjoy...