When I saw The Faint play the Black Cat in Washington, D.C. two years ago, I think I wet myself. As the opening notes of "The Conductor" pierced through the club from the pitch-black stage, frontman Todd Baechle's lurched frame slowly appeared above his keyboard, pausing for half-a-second. An instant later, dirty synthscapes and pulsating strobes convulsed from the stage, revealing the Omaha quintet's ghostly silhouettes hammering at their instruments beneath smoke machines and glaring green and red lights. Clad entirely in black, they played just short of an hour, highlighting their then-recently released album Danse Macabre and its 1999 predecessor Blank-Wave Arcade. For that hour, their dark, nostalgia-driven synthpop may as well have transformed the small venue into a Soft Cell concert circa 1983. I didn't stop dancing for a second.

Often unfairly pegged as mere new wave revivalists, The Faint spent the last several years as an anomaly within Omaha's tightly-knit indie folk scene, honing a retro aesthetic while simultaneously helping to pioneer the dance-punk trend now defining much of critically-acclaimed indie rock. With their newly-released fourth album, Wet From Birth, Baechle and company bring us more electro beats, synths and tongue-in-cheek lyricism, while consciously stepping away from the '80s gleam of past efforts.

The album leaves me with two impressions. First, that The Faint has adopted (or even exploited) the most obvious quirks of the electro movement that they originally helped precipitate. Compared to the coldly synthetic Danse Macabre, Wet From Birth is a much grimier, humanized record. Prominent, manic disco bass-lines drive much of the album, which also benefits from the reemergence of guitar (courtesy of newest member and ex-metal head Dapose), an instrument all but abandoned by the band following their 1998 debut Media. The obligatory synthesizers are still found in abundance, but are more nuanced this time, complementing songs instead of driving them. In that sense, Wet From Birth is a tweaking of their already-developed style; they've simply learned to balance dance floor glimmer and precision with some rock aggression.

Second, in removing themselves from the limiting new-wave format, The Faint has mirrored the response of '80s icons Depeche Mode and New Order to the redefinition of mainstream alternative in the early 1990s. Just as those bands looked beyond the obsolescence of new-wave to embrace both guitars and emerging technologies in dance music, The Faint has forged their most creative and unexpected record yet. This is immediately apparent in "Erection," an updated take on Depeche Mode's 1990 hit "Personal Jesus." As buzzing synths and handclap percussion guide the song's deliberative cyber-billy melody, Baechle's new romantic drawl spits out erotic insinuations typical of most Faint albums.

"Erection" segues into "Paranoiattack," an unsurprising post-9/11 "State of My Psyche" club anthem in which symmetrical bass and synth lines from members Joel Peterson and Jacob Thiele envelope Baechle lines like "The news has got me paranoid/papers and the news reports/casualties of every war/the anchor people keeping score." It's an interesting replacement for his usual campiness -which benefited greatly from equally campy arrangements - but I would hope Baechle could complete his band's most mature album with even more mature lyrics.

And as relatively mature as Wet From Birth is, I can't help but think The Faint has squandered their chance at making a truly great album. They've expanded their sound but drifted out of focus, proving both their precision and versatility but disappointing fans through lack of ambition. After following The Faint's evolution and experiencing their dynamic live act, I was convinced that Wet From Birth would be tour de force, a defing, genre-defying triumph and the pinnacle of their career. The album steps in that direction, but leaves footprints far too close to the retro starting line.

That isn't to say that fans won't enjoy Wet From Birth. Having already debuted in the Billboard Top 200, the album's Depeche Mode-cum-Rapture synthpop stylings will easily expand The Faint's audience. Take songs like "Symptom Finger" and "Desperate Guys:" The Faint has lost neither its charm nor danceability, their nightclub grime-pop never better suited for widespread success. I only wonder how much longer they can defer the inevitable risk-taking necessary for greatness. For now, the comfortable Wet From Birth will have to suffice.