The Faint: Wet From Birth

The Faint: Wet From Birth

2004

Saddle Creek Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Desperate Guys  2. How Could I Forget?  3. I Disappear  4. Southern Belles in London Sing  5. Erection  6. Paranoiattack  7. Dropkick the Punks  8. Phone Call  9. Symptom Finger  10. Birth


The super disappointing follow up to "Danse Macabre." Damn. What happened?

I remember winning a Best Buy gift card at work, so I went and picked up some new listens. I remember snagging this and the latest album by The Fall (which at the time was "Country on the Click." Now that's a fucking killer album!) and maybe some others. I loved the deliciously dark and hook filled "Danse Macabre" and was hungry for some shadowy synth-pop action. I remember putting this on and making it about one minute into the bright and dopey opener "Desperate Guys" and wondering what I ever heard in this band. Todd Fink no longer sounded like Simon Le Bon's evil twin. He was suddenly remarkably irritating (not to mention even he sounded bored with his own shtick). "Bleh," I say! "BLEH!"

For the most part the album just has an underwhelming, routine feel to it. I don't hate "How Could I Forget?" or "Paranoiattack" but I also don't especially care about them either. Only a few songs are truly awful, like the endless, stone-dumb slog "Erection" or "Birth" which is so deeply dopey it needs to be heard to be believed:

"In the beginning there was semen,
In a deep mound of flesh,
And a crest that traveled,
On a wave of their own mess...

My brains wouldn't fit,
Through her organ of sex,
An incision was made,
With a scalpel and mess..."

It's so gross and boring that it makes me want to puke.

 But in the midst of all this nothingness, the band does deliver one of their all-time best songs with "Southern Belles in London Sing," where suddenly  the prospect of a bright, gleaming Faint shows a world of promise. A new romantic synth-pop confection that reminds me of some overly swooning 80's European pop single. Like something Ultravox might have pulled off. Really lush, mature and well composed, which makes the transition to "Erection" immediately after all the more painful (as my face digs deeply into my palm).

There are a few other promising tracks here, like "I Disappear" where the band's slight shift towards straightforward rock works well. And "Dropkick the Punks" has some decent energy that I wish they would have explored a bit more. Oh, well...They can't all be masterpieces. Download "Southern Belles in London Sing," "I Disappear" and "Dropkick the Punks" move onto their next album and don't look back...

Here's "Southern Belles in London Sing" by The Faint...Enjoy...