You ever sit back and get reminded of a time when any
particular band was hot shit then seemingly out of nowhere just kind of fell
off the face of the earth as everyone kind of grew up, moved on, and decided to
listen to other musical endeavors?
Well a few days ago I was hanging out with a buddy listening
to some random shenanigans on Pandora and upon just general interest of the songs
being played I was reminded about the band Panic! At the Disco, and while I do
recall covering one of their efforts in the form of a song of the day with some
sense of being impressed by them returning to a mildly electronic heavy but familiar
sound of power poppy emo goodness that we all fell in love with when, “A fever
you can’t sweat out,” was released but I kind of just ignored the effort
released and realized they’re still making records and people do still in fact
listen to this band albeit the tunes aren’t really that spectacular but this
isn’t really a piece to bash what’s honestly a band that never really went to shit
like their contemporaries but in the process of looking back I’m fairly inspired
to do another edition of Lost Great albums.
Pretty. Odd. Its’ an interesting record that upon doing my research
beforehand seemingly didn’t seem to get as well received as it’s processor but
upon actually giving a listen while writing this article seems to rather
strongly stand up at the very least in the first few tracks which kind of
abandoned that familiar new-wavey feel of their earlier record in favor of what
was a very Revolution-Era Beatles inspiration in the form of a series of
natural instruments and kind of semi-psychedelic sounding tunes that are in
some way’s straightforward pop tunes that do their best to try and be very lyrically
imaginative and for the most part that really does work.
I’m not saying these guy’s hold a candle to the fab 4
themselves but in terms of looking at this as an attempt to beat the sophomore slump
it’s strong especially in tunes like, “That Green Gentleman,” which is really a
very amusingly bouncy number that treads a fine line between power pop and
early to mid 60’s baroque pop, you have an album by a band who decided to do
their best to not be another emo group and it’s kind of a shame because this
record didn’t get too much praise when it came out and from the looks of it like
Panic! It’s just faded into obscurity.
SO if you’re looking for the attempt of another myspace-era
group to actually break the mold and make a very well crafted kind of Beatles
inspired tunes that are both strongly done and that hold up a million times
better then the album that came before I’d advise you find yourself a copy of this
either amongst your old CD’s from High School or maybe in a random CD store if
those are still around and you kind of enjoy yourself what James Montgomery (asQuoted from the Wikipedia page) Said, “Give
this one a decade…We could have another Pinkerton on our hands,” and in all
honesty we just might….
