I’m not sure weather it was my Uncle Steve that first introduced me to The Faint, or if it was my brother. But ever since I heard Danse Macabre, I was in love. They often get a lot of flack from the punck-rock community for trying to be punk, or being too mainstream. Which is purely ridiculous, because if you pay attention to a lot of their songs, they are punk as hell.

Danse Macabre has always been my favorite of their albums. So much so that I own it on vinyl. But lately I’ve been listening to their third album (Wet From Birth) and enjoying it quite a bit too. One of my favorite tracks is Desperate Guys, the first track off the album. So, lets get down to it, shall we?

We are played in with a brief little violin intro. Then we get into the vocals and a little bit of bass syth, and drums.

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

Her loins? Nice! That verse is followed by this really cool bass snyth part that sounds something like “Ooo Ooo wah wah wah” Which I really like, and we move on to the next part.

And whoa, when it started, my first thought was love,
Not just lust, because when I heard you speak, I felt warm.
In the evening I saw you, you were warming the bass up.
Your hair covered your face up,
I was acting indifferent at the merch booth, putting on makeup

For some reason, it works really well with the rest of the song it cram that last line in, despite the fact that it’s a bit too long to fit in.

The prechorus, and then we move into the chorus, where the drums get a little more intense, and we get a little more orchestral action.

I crossed my fingers, but I didn’t beg, no ,
Cause I knew you knew,
Cause I knew you knew I liked you.
I knew you knew I liked you,
I knew you knew it,
But I figured desperate guys,
Never had a chance with you.
I figured desperate guys,
Never had a chance with you.

We get another prechorus and the chorus repeats a few more times. Finally we end with a cool little break-down outro.

All in all, this songs is really a pretty good one. I’d highly advise that anyone out there that’s tantalized by it, should investigate the rest of this album, and, indeed, the rest of their work. Except for the remix album, which is, in this man’s humble opinion, not really that good.

-James out