August 6, 2003

The Faint : Dance Macabre Remixes

Finally, rock meets dance and almost no one involved needs a bricking

7 / 10 So many people have tried – and failed, often spectacularly – to make rock and dance music work together that it’s easy to forget that it can be done.

Admittedly, the strike rate is pretty low, but [/a] managed it, as did New Order and, for a time, and with a lot of help, Primal Scream. Stone Roses dropped rock completely for ‘Fools Gold’ and those doomed, dumpy goons [a]Faint managed to scrape ‘Wrote For Luck’ from their E-addled pineal glands long enough for DJ Paul Oakenfold to strip it down to its essentials and whack the break from[/a]’s ‘Express Yourself’ underneath. Mind you, that was fourteen years ago, and it’s Oakenfold, the now famously self-regarding Global Superstar DJ Brand – who has returned, alongside nine of his peers to take [a]’s wiry, electronic rock to new, unexpected places.

Mostly it's a wonderful, enervating success. Jacques Lu Cont - aka Stuart from Reading - takes on The Conductor and delivers a grindingly motorik slice of alienated future pop where Todd Baechle's vocals are slid on and off the backing track like perfectly formed machine parts. Ursula 1000 attack 'Agenda Suicide' and squash everything out of its cell-structure until only the ghost of Wire and Gang Of Four are left to add colour to the churning, metallic bassline and frozen-out vocal. Strangely, Photek, a producer famous for his insanely detailed approach to beats, puts his name to the only real stinker, his plodding, will-this-do? bodge of 'Total Job'.

The Calculators and Mojolators both re-tool ‘Posed To Death’, the former attempting a pitched-down, synth-heavy, gangsta hip-hop lope best left toDr Dre, while the latter push the tempo up and plant [a][/a] in the middle ofDaft Punk’s favourite dancefloor, somewhere they sound very comfortable indeed.

Also into the spirit is Junior Sanchez, the most authentically dance music person present, who records even more guitars for his twistingly distorted version of 'Violent'. Oakenfold's 'Glass Danse' is as professionally MTV-friendly as you'd expect while Medicine's shadow-lit blend of 'Ballad Of A Paralysed Citizen' ends things gracefully.

Done, and we didn't even mention Jesus Jones! Oh shit.

Rob Fitzpatrick