Omaha, Nebraska put itself on the map thanks to auteur Alexander Payne basing several of his films there. Now the city is slowly turning into the new New York with a couple of bands emerging from the cornfields to make big names for themselves. The first to do so was the emo band Bright Eyes headed by Omaha native Conor Oberst. Now the electro-dance group The Faint has garnered quite a bit of notoriety, but it hasn't been over-night success. The group officially formed in 1998 and released their first album that year, Media. The Faint's second album, Blank-Wave Arcade showcased the band's propinquity for 1980s pop/dance influences including the omnipresent use of keyboards. Then in 2001, the band released Danse Macabre, a darker, harder album full of electronic effects that veer into early Nine Inch Nails territory. After a three- year wait, The Faint release their fourth album, Wet from Birth where the band plateaus.
The most striking thing about the band is how British they sound. It's obvious they reap influences from New Order, Blur, Clinic, Depeche Mode and ever so slightly the Sex Pistols. The first track is "Desperate Guys" that begins with a heavy string instrumentation then adds drums, sound effects, lead singer's Todd Baechle’s lo-fi vocals to infuse into a gritty New Wave sound. On the third track, the album takes off with the decent "I Disappear." It's faster paced than the first two tracks with blistering guitars and pounding rhythms. All the instruments work well together to form a song that could vie for a Gang of Four tune. The next song, and by far the most interesting track on the album (albeit misplaced) is "Southern Belles in London Sing." Rapid strings combined with bass lines form an upbeat, almost orchestral song. The beats are not strong enough to dance along to, but it'll make the listener want to get up and at least twirl around to the infectious rhythms. From this point on, the album peaks and begins to wane with an amalgam of amplified sounds and moody guitars as heard on "Drop Kick the Punks" which unsuccessfully tries to channel the Sex Pistols “Anarchy in the UK.” On the next song, “Phone Call,” the band slows it down with a straightforward, alt love song. Baechle pleads: "if I could open up to you, maybe you could open up to me/we do all the things that lovers do/ I've mean meaning to tell you how I feel/but instead I got a phone call/just thought I’d call to let you know I want to be alone all night again." Lyrics aren’t exactly the band’s strong point, but what they lack in writing, they make up for in sonic explorations. The penultimate track is the respectable techno fueled “Symptom Finger” which leads to the last song "Birth", that contains pulsating drums, harsh guitars, dark swirling sounds and the melodramatic lyric: "I should've noticed the beauty and not how it hurt/wet like a cherry in the bloodbath of birth."
Wet from Birth is a departure from The Faint’s two previous albums as it doesn’t exude the personality of Blank Wave Arcade or even the light goth of Danse Macabre. Birth focuses on coarse guitars and electronic sounds neglecting the synths and keyboards that made Blank Wave so effective. The Faint are heading in the right direction, but they need to settle on a definitive genre that works for them all the time.
