sealed human: press: blank-wave review
Blank-Wave Arcade
reviewed by Jason Morano for Toledo Entertainment
If there is one genre of music that I would have never expected to see
revived anytime soon, it would have been early 80’s techno-pop. I was first
proven wrong by Trans Am’s 1999 release, Futureworld. Now it seems as
though another group has committed themselves to bringing back a time
we thought we wanted to go away for a while. Following their 1998 debut,
Media, Blank-wave Arcade is The Faint’s second full-length CD and it actually
manages to convince the listener to take the band seriously. In a single
CD, The Faint have taken bits and pieces of some of the early 80’s best
techno projects and brought them back for a second run. Thanks to radio
stations like FM96.3 in Detroit, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby, Yazz, Split
Enz, and early Depeche Mode and Duran Duran are back, which is fine with
me. To hear people my own age make this kind of music is even better
because a lot of the cheese has been taken out. As I’m sure you can
gather, the music on Blank-wave Arcade is built around synthesizer, with
over-dramatized vocals (sounding like a hybrid between Pulp, General
Public and Elvis Costello) conveying the desperation of living in a
time-encapsulated, techno-romantic world. The funny thing is that The Faint
are not a joke band and are quite good at what they do. Bursts of catchy
synthesizer a la Missing Persons and Toni Basil make many of the tracks
(dare I say it?) danceable. If you have spent the past decade or more
getting your early 80’s fix from terrible cover bands in terrible bars, or if you
are feeling a little scared because you’ve been hearing the music you grew
up on played on "oldies" stations, The Faint gives you an opportunity buy a
new CD from a new band and maybe even feel hip again.
back to Blank-Wave Arcade reviews
