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The remix album is always a tricky
one, and easy to explain for outfits such as The
Orb and Armand Van Helden who have made a
name for themselves in remixing, or in the case of
people like Steve Reich who have submitted
their work for reinterpretation by other artists.
But when it comes to The Faint, it's
easy to detect a stop gap being filled, particularly
as they admit on their website that "it will be a
while yet" before the next album.
There's some impressive names on
remix duty here. Paul Oakenfold,
Photek, Jacques Lu Cont and Junior
Sanchez head the queue, whilst it's good to see
other less known names such as Jagz Kooner and
Mojolators included.
Opening up, Lu Cont's
breezy Thin White Duke take on the Conductor grinds to
a halt for the vocals, overdoing the strings a tad
before normal service is resumed. Then there's the
first mix of Posed To Death, with an inventive mix
from The Calculators which is surprisingly annoying!
Oakenfold's mix of Glass Danse is one of the best
things here, a big breakbeat sound emerging from some
subtle production touches. Photek's take on
Total Job is very Gary Numan, dark and
menacing, always threatening to speed up but never
quite moving forward quickly enough. In fact a common
theme of the album is that the remixes are curiously
undanceable, and for the most part I found my feet
rooted to the ground. A good example of this is
Jagz Kooner's take on Agenda Suicide, which is fast but
ineffective.
Best beat, by a country mile, is
the Mojolators' four to the floor selection. If the
other nine tracks here had half their funk this would
be a collection well worth getting. As it is, this
Danse Macabre is disjointed, lacks true variety and
falls well short of being that rare thing - a good
remix album.
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