Art of Losing Touch, the third album by Fake, saw them trying to broaden their sound, which is often a sign of approaching writer's block, especially if the band did its thing as flawlessly as Fake had in the past -- there was basically nothing to add to their branch of dense but catchy industrial rock vaguely reminiscent of Filter (which is always a good thing). But luckily, in Fake's case, it was a creative itch, not songwriting problems, that pushed them to expand, and they pulled it off splendidly, compensating with new gains for some unavoidable losses. Their trademark sound was mellowed down this time, even on the opening songs that were evidently meant to re-create previous high-voltage powerfests -- they sound softer and more introspective this time around, and lack the immediacy of past hits like Utopia. But instead, Fake throw in some tunes further down the line that are rougher and more abrasive than anything they had done in the past, and besides, the mellow sound (which still retains plenty of rock grit) turns out to be the main strength of the album -- a prime example, Endless, is nothing if not elegant. The trip-hop influence, credited to Luna Sea's Inoran, who still hadn't left the band by that point, remains downplayed, but results in a couple of nice brooding songs in the middle of the record that, on the whole, still give a unified feeling despite the stylistic detours. Art of Losing Touch is less catchy than Fake's previous stuff, but that's because the sound became more multi-layered while remaining, in fact, just as inspired -- the hooks are there, they are just less obvious, but very much worth digging for. ~ Alexey Eremenko, Rovi

1		On My Tide
2		Clean
3		Praise
4		Escape From The Audio Mess
5		Endless
6		Candy
7		Stitch Frequency
8		Redemption
9		Nervous To Sleep
10		Pristine
11		Mainline
12		Drip
13		In Vertigo
14		Digital Breeze
15		Bit Of Life

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