Putting the new back in new wave

New wave isn’t exactly looked on as a genre of musical significance, but that may change if bands such as the Faint continue to reanimate what was most interesting about that ‘80s era: the androgynous imagery, the robotic precision and the vigorous synthesizers. The Omaha group’s sold-out performance at the Henry Fonda Music Box Theatre on Sunday (the first of two nights there) was an intriguing blend of organic and synthetic in which drama and decadence, style and substance, rock and techno collided like asteroids in a video game.

Dressed all in black, sporting angular haircuts and backlit in gold, the group was full of enthusiasm and bounce. Although its sound obviously borrows from the likes of Depeche Mode, New Order and Soft Cell, it recalled an even more commercially popular group, Duran Duran.

But the members of the Faint are much more than new-romantic prancers. Quite the opposite in fact. Tunes from their last two albums, “Blank-Wave Arcade” and “Danse Macabre” (which just got a more intense techno treatment on new “Danse Macabre Remixes”), were intensified by blaring decibel levels and giant video screens depicting messages about commercialism and sexuality, along with more vague, control-panel visuals. The result was a sensory overload that felt more rave than retro, and made the Faint look like pioneers of a more sophisticated, beat-driven new wave for the computer generation.