Four years after ruling clubs with their single, 'Desperate Guys' -- singer Todd Fink's ode to his lady love Orenda -- electronic rockers the Faint have prepped an August 5 return with 'Fasciinatiion,' and their first track is already pulling punches.

"Tabloid magazines are made in hell" are Fink's opening lyrics of the fiery cut, which chastises American society's obsession with celebrity culture, though it was inspired abroad.

"He went to Europe for a while -- went to Berlin and it was kind of around the heyday of that scene," Faint synthesizer wizard Jacob Thiele tells Spinner from his home in Omaha, where the five-piece is based. "[There] were dance parties in Berlin -- all-night-and-on-to-the-next-day kind of thing. When he came back from that trip he had a real lust for electronic dance music. The things that he learned over there played into how we worked on the production of this album."

The Faint wrote, recorded, produced and will release the new album on their own (on new imprint blank.wav), with the inspiration behind their independent attitude coming from bands of their youth.

"Fugazi, Superchunk -- bands like that -- they just took care of business and they made sure that they were not sacrificing their art along the way," Thiele says. "We've kind of always looked up to people that started their own labels and just kind of made it their lifestyle. The digital thing is what makes it possible for artists to do it more themselves. Now is the time. You can really take advantage of it and hopefully it will continue to flourish."

Though 'Fasciinatiion' took four years to make, Thiele says the group made a conscious decision to refrain from getting too out there.

"Because we were spending so much time writing the songs, we purposely never thought like 'OK, let's try and turn this into some concept kind of record with these obvious themes,'" Thiele says. "Usually when bands spend too much time in the studio you can just tell it's a little overcooked."

The themes might not be as apparent as it is in the band's opening track, but one thing is very clear with the new record -- it's a dance record, even if Thiele thinks it's slightly more mature beat-wise than the Faint's previous ones.

"When I listen to our older records, I can't believe how fast some of the songs are," he says. "I'm like, 'What were we doing?' It's a little too bombastic sometimes. We've learned how to pace ourselves a little better, but it's still really upbeat. It's kind of what we do."