Music
Most Popular
-
Dive Bars
A handcrafted tour of the best, most obscure places to lean on a stool in Houston.
-
Getting Off
Attorney Tyler Flood says he wins 80 percent of his clients' DWI trials, even if they were 100 percent drunk as a skunk.
-
Houston's Choice for Mayor
Black Guy, Rich White Guy, Lesbian or Hispanic Republican
-
Burgers and Hash
Lola, a modern diner in the Heights is dishing up some top-notch Texas short-order cooking.
-
Looking for a Bull Market
Killen's Steakhouse in suburban Pearland is probably best during boom times.
-
BBQ Buffet
Korea Garden Grille offers a stellar selection of barbecue items in unlimited quantities — and new and interesting ways to eat them.
-
Looking for a Bull Market
Killen's Steakhouse in suburban Pearland is probably best during boom times.
-
Dive Bars
A handcrafted tour of the best, most obscure places to lean on a stool in Houston.
-
Burgers and Hash
Lola, a modern diner in the Heights is dishing up some top-notch Texas short-order cooking.
-
Houston's Choice for Mayor
Black Guy, Rich White Guy, Lesbian or Hispanic Republican
Most Popular sponsored by
Reader's Picks
Top Recommendations
A short list of Houston's most popular hot spots.
Top Recommendations
A short list of Houston's most popular hot spots.
Top Recommenders
People who share the things they like! More often than most.
user content provided by: LikeMe.net &
Recent Blog Posts
Fri Nov 6, 5:34 PMFri Nov 6, 5:02 PMSat Nov 7, 2:00 PMSat Nov 7, 10:00 AMFri Nov 6, 5:00 PMFri Nov 6, 4:30 PM
National Features >
Village VoiceWith the exception of the electric rice cookers, this Bowery tenement could have come straight from the Nineteenth Century. By Elizabeth DwoskinMiami New TimesFrom the homeless parking mafia to the meter fairy, finding a spot in Miami has taken a turn toward the surreal. By Gus Garcia-RobertsCity PagesStraight from the Sam's Club tire shop, Brett Rogers prepares to meet Fedor Emelianenko in mortal combat. By Bradley Campbell
The Faint: Fasciinatiion
Published on September 16, 2008 at 10:27am
Cut Copy and Hercules & Love Affair have been burning up dorm-room dance floors. Then there's the rise of the more richly histrionic LCD Soundsystem, not to mention the textured Burial and grotesquely distorted Justice. It all makes Omaha quintet the Faint's simpler mind-meld of angst and beats seem more like the Quaint. But on Fasciinatiion, the band's first album since 2004's Wet from Birth, the Faint took notes. "Who put this hook inside my mouth?" asks frontman Todd Fink on Fasciinatiion's aptly titled leadoff track, "Get Seduced"; the answer, proudly, is himself. The band's most alluring track in ages weds a hot-fudge bassline to clever sound effects, one after another, from malfunctioning acid synth to simulated zipper; the line where an "A-list starlet shaves her brains" betrays a sense of humor that will leave fans of 2002 breakthrough Danse Macabre relieved to learn that "Let the Poison Spill from Your Throat" might have been a stab at high-drama humor after all. The ebbing "I Treat You Wrong" wins innumerable points for cribbing from Archers of Loaf's "White Trash Heroes." But mostly the fascination here is with sounds-not-songs, which is fine for the year Portishead came back, as long as the Faint have enough dial tones and farts swiped from Thom Yorke's basement tapes to deck out Fink's traditionally one-note delivery when listeners' attention wanders. And give them some props for shaping a hook around the phrase "forever growing centipedes."
|