The Faint - 'Danse Macabre' (City Slang) Released 27/01/03

Cast yourself back a year, you're in London having travelled by coach that morning to the Astoria. Last night you were by a twist of fate in Manchester watching S Club 7, but now you are here to restore your musical creditability. Clinic, and later Trail of Dead are billed but apparently some US nobodies NME has jumped on are playing first.

Half an hour later, you're jibbering like an excited squirrel who's just seen one of the most random and bizarrely good acts ever. Promising myself I would get hold of an album to take a proper listen - I'd failed until now.

Danse Macabre is an album with an attitude problem. Coated in a thick layer of 80s gothic influenced sleaze; this album would be the narcotics fuelled sexually ambiguous boy/girlfriend you'd wouldn't bring home to meet your parents.
If you've ever stood in a club wondering why the hell no one makes rock music you can dance to without looking like your having an epileptic fit then this is quite possibly the album for you.

Enveloped within a deep synthesizer and a slow thudding bass, the Faint take you on an electronic jaunt. Thirty-five minutes of death obsessed lyrics will fill your head before they spit you out the other end wondering the fuck just happened. Todd Baechle's voice is used to full effect, as yet another instrument within the band's make up. Think My Bloody Valentine's bastard child with Depeche Mode that ran off to Omaha with the Cure. Get this album right now.