The Faint's “The Geeks Were Right” is nothing new, so please stop yawning.

When the Faint emerged from out of nowhere and released the twenty-five minute long Blank Wave Arcade, an EP that had one of the most efficient length-to-influence ratios in music history, it seemed like they were a band that had single-handedly ended the moratorium on synthesizers in rock music.

Though the reaction to their records since has never quite again climbed the triple-tiered keyboard stand of transcendence from which they threw down that first left-field release (like a Moses crossed with Gary Numan), they have consistently honed their production and stripped their sound down to the essentials. The Faint has posted a new song on their site from their upcoming release, Fasciination. “The Geeks Were Right” is lamentably slower and more focused on the lyrics than most of the standout tracks on 2004's Wet From Birth, but despite that, this muffled energy still shows off their status as auteurs in a realm of synth production that owes a whole library of sounds to the ingenuity of this band. Their trademark fear of the future is more schtick than paranoia-driven at this point, but the chorus' intro line, “I saw the future,” can refer just as easily in the (deservedly) self-aggrandizing hip-hop mode to the band's self-acknowledgment as the guys who ushered in of an era of synth-based indie rock.

The Faint, “The Geeks Were Right”

[Download]