Warning! This review contains material of a sexually explicit nature

I notice my toes are tapping. I stare at them fixedly, then glance around the room. I close my eyes, listen intently. Nothing. Not the slightest hint of music. But there go my toes, tapping away.

That’s because somewhere, in the back of my mind, the place where we keep our unspeakable desires, our uncontrollable urges, and sexual perversions, The Faint are playing. And they’re having real fun.

There’s something compelling about the combination of Indie and electronic music that The Faint have crafted. The boys are clever, they’ve realised that night-clubs are veritable dens of iniquity, and they’ve siphoned that latent eroticism straight into the album.

Was it more than attraction and a physical lust?
Her loins, my imagination, that first inconceivable touch
That I was planning, I mean wishing
How embarrassed I’d been if you knew what I was thinking

More to the point, Todd Baechle delivers it in a drawl that seems to drool with desire, while the bass throbs and violins batter against the processed beat. Desperate guys is the blueprint for Wet From Birth, traditional instrumentation bristling under a glossy surface. A little like lust.

How could I forget? is even better, a real masterpiece of electronica. The steady thudding pulse of the keyboard literally makes your heart accelerate as the song builds. The story is clear: Boy and Girl meet on the dancefloor, talk meaningless small-talk while Girl tries to get away and Boy barely manages to control lust.

Boy: How could I forget a waste of breath?
Of course I do remember
All the things you said were pointless
And now you go on dropping names
Mmmm but I kind of dig you

A perfect summing up of modern love, meaningless, trivial, easily caving in to aggression with a sinister subtext pitting the two voices against each other. And it culminates in a fabulous instrumental crescendo, mid-way between the orchestral construction of a Nine Inch Nails song and an 80’s Depeche Mode tune. Simply marvellous.

But it still doesn’t quite prepare you for the dirty fuzz of the bass-intro to I disappear, a welcome introduction of instrumental skill from a band who often choose to ignore the fact they are as good with instruments as they are at arranging computerised blips.

I disappeared I lost control
my body’s moving all on its own
I watched myself walk away
A foreign spirit took my place
An empty stare its eyes are dull
Stole my essence it’s riding my pulse

A brilliant portrait of the same scenario observed from within – in fact, the second verse borrows the melody of How could I forget? for double the impact

how could I resist?
It’s all I wanted, now I guess I’ve got it
Why it happened, I don’t know
Hope this doesn’t last forever

Once again encased in a compelling toe-tapping rhythm, we’re as captive in the racing pulse of the tune as the narrator is caught up in the swirling light and sound of the club. Extraordinary.

Really the album doesn’t get much better than that closely knit duo of songs. But when Southern Belles in London sing starts up, it becomes apparent this is a considerably more focussed band than the one that recorded Danse Macabre. Even the return of the acoustic guitar to the melody (however buried under strings and keyboards) serves as a reminder of the unmistakably Indie aesthetic of the band – after all, Todd Baechle was a member of Commander Venus, the band that started Saddle Creek records and whose component members would go on to form Cursive and Bright Eyes. Which just goes to show Baechle’s ingenuity in finding new musical formulas to explore the territory.

Erection couldn’t be more obvious as a song title – really, it’s the male Achilles heel for The Faint

You tried for perfection
But then
Uh-oh
Erection

Yes indeed. All man’s best intentions, and yet underlying all the pleasantries there’s the deep dark secret that perverts everything noble.

Probably just to give us a break, the boys decide to change playing fields, as Paranoiattack launches into political invective, taking its lead with the Michael Moore-esque uncovering of the politics of fear

The propaganda’s working now
I’m falling for it hook and reel
I’m stocking up on medicine
Buying tape to seal us off in paranoia
Paranoiattack, paranoiawar, paranoia sinks like a bomb, paranoiathreat, paranoiaffects, paranoia drops bombs

A powerful, albeit not very subtle unveiling of the use of paranoia to keep the public in line and behind the official party line

Dropkick the Punks is an even greater shift in tone, as The Faint trade in the keyboards and end up sounding like a revved up Franz Ferdinand, German included. Bass squalls angrily in the foreground as choppy sharp electric guitar work keeps the groundwork moving. Even the drums ring through completely unprocessed, while the keyboards continue to do their work, this time in the background. A welcome and immensely enjoyable change of pace.

Phone call finds the band back on home territory, electronics firmly back in place while Todd chants his way through another tale of a failed superficial relationship, this one focussing clearly on the total lack of communication between a couple

we do all the things that lovers do
I’ve been meaning to tell you how I feel

Symptom finger picks up the pace somewhat, as choppy processed vocals give the song a jagged sharp-edged feel.

the faintness that you feel is nothing permanent
…
I feel a burning in my eye
It’s from the television lights
…
Okay, I’m gonna shut it off

Another toe-tapping compelling song. But like the whole album, it’s just so cunning the way The Faint have you nodding your head, dancing, but not necessarily questioning what you hear – until you hear it again. And again. And it slowly dawns on you that you’re chanting out choruses about erections or the slow meaningless death of communication with loved ones. Clever boys indeed.

Interestingly, the band round the album off with the only entirely non-electronic song on the disc – in fact, The Faint haven’t sounded like this since their debut Media. Todd Baechle leads the band through the firm stomp of Birth, as guitarist Dapose hits on a sublime electric guitar riff setting the whole thing in motion. Joel Petersen remains beside his steady throbbing bass, while Clark Baechle on drums finds a similar thudding steadiness to the processed beats of the rest of the album. Obviously Todd sticks to vocals for this one, and quite what the other keyboardist Jacob Thiele was up to during this song, who knows. What matters is that the band sound fascinatingly good, whatever kind of manically driven compulsive pulsating music they are playing. I won’t bother quoting lyrics, suffice to say it’s a fairly clear journey from insemination to birth.

Just think, the things that people can get you mindlessly dancing and singing along to. Wet from Birth, from start to finish, is one of the most fascinating and eye-opening manipulations I have ever heard. You just have to hear this for yourselves.