Tuesday August 28, 2001 |

Danse Macabre

(Saddle Creek)

Grade: B

Pop in Danse Macabre, the creepily titled new release from Lincoln, Nebraska's The Faint, and two words spring to mind. Actually it's the same word, repeated: Duran Duran.

For anyone alive during the early- and mid-1980s, this may not sound like much of an endorsement. After all, these double-monikered British hairfarmers were responsible for some of the decade's most heinous abuses in both music ("No-no-notorious") and fashion (that horrible blue shirt/pink tie combo in the video for "Rio").

But don't let The Faint's kinship with the synth-pop '80s turn you away. While the band's keyboard-laced New Wave recalls sounds of 20 years ago, its solid, driving hooks and edgy, goth-inflected vocals make them far more than retro throwbacks.

Danse Macabre undeniably borrows from Duran Duran and other New Wave stalwarts. But it's the dark, dancy Duran of "Planet Earth" and "Careless Memories," not the precious, preppy Duran of "Rio."

And while '80s synth bands were characteristically short on substance, The Faint packages politics with its pop, cloaking scathing rebukes of dead-end jobs and societal violence behind the gothy club rhythms of tracks like "Agenda Suicide" and "Violent."

Not everything on Danse Macabre works as well - the calculated creepiness of "Posed to Death" is a bit forced, and singer Todd Baechle's alt-goth vocals occasionally veer uncomfortably close to self-parody. But overall, the album is a success, proving there's more to New Wave than mascara and fishnets.