Rock is dead. The last couple of rock albums I've reviewed have involved me saying things along the line of "Track four sounds a lot like this song from this band." I've come to the conclusion that rock died a long time ago. Maybe it just up and choked on its vomit at age 27, or killed itself and left a huge conspiracy theory in its wake. Pretty much all music since 1994 has been made by attaching strings to rotted corpses and skeletons and making them dance in the hopes that young kids, people with bad ears and complete morons will toss whatever change they've got in their pockets.
So after rumors of scrapping a nearly completed concept album which turned out to be a lie that was code for "we ain't got nothin," Panic at the Disco decided to try their hand at the chamber pop sound that made their pals The Hush Sound famous. However, instead of taking their influences and making some unique sounds, they decided to lock themselves in a room with "Pet Sounds" and "A Night At The Opera." Pretty. Odd. shows just how much of a trend-whore singer/lyrcist Brandon Urie and his band of vaudeville frauds are. Synth-pop is old now, so let's play with some catchy baroque melodies like all them Indie kids are doing. But as the old saying goes, "If it's not baroque, don't fix it."
The album starts off with the oh, so clever, "We're So Starving," where Urie sings "We're so sorry we've been gone/we were busy writing songs for you/don't have to worry cause we're still the same band." Spoken like a true tool. Good to know Urie hasn't changed all that much. From there we get the single, "Nine In The Afternoon," which is very "Mr. Blue Sky" era ELO. However, for fans of Panic, the song is a good yardstick to measure the rest of the album when hearing it on the radio. The rest of the album has nothing quite as good or up tempo. It's a catchy number about taking drugs and having a lazy day. I imagine Urie would say it was about "chillaxing" or something equally douchey before applying mascara and eyeliner.
The album is infinitely better than 2006's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, in that Panic has gone from being laughably bad to bland and boring. They dropped the clever wordsmithing and emo titling from Fever in exchange for sincere sentiments and some vivid imagery.
"That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)," has a fitting subhead, as it is the epitome of the band's shift. They strip down, washing away the layered production of the past for a simple acoustic guitar riff. But instead of keeping to an identifiable sound, they jump into the lo-fi ragtime "I Have Friends In Holy Places," and then to a Shins-style downbeat lull. A little later, "Folkin' Around" comes up, a two-minute floorboards stomper that works better in its nakedness than anything else on the album.
So after rumors of scrapping a nearly completed concept album which turned out to be a lie that was code for "we ain't got nothin," Panic at the Disco decided to try their hand at the chamber pop sound that made their pals The Hush Sound famous. However, instead of taking their influences and making some unique sounds, they decided to lock themselves in a room with "Pet Sounds" and "A Night At The Opera." Pretty. Odd. shows just how much of a trend-whore singer/lyrcist Brandon Urie and his band of vaudeville frauds are. Synth-pop is old now, so let's play with some catchy baroque melodies like all them Indie kids are doing. But as the old saying goes, "If it's not baroque, don't fix it." The album starts off with the oh, so clever, "We're So Starving," where Urie sings "We're so sorry we've been gone/we were busy writing songs for you/don't have to worry cause we're still the same band." Spoken like a true tool. Good to know Urie hasn't changed all that much. From there we get the single, "Nine In The Afternoon," which is very "Mr. Blue Sky" era ELO. However, for fans of Panic, the song is a good yardstick to measure the rest of the album when hearing it on the radio. The rest of the album has nothing quite as good or up tempo. It's a catchy number about taking drugs and having a lazy day. I imagine Urie would say it was about "chillaxing" or something equally douchey before applying mascara and eyeliner.
The album is infinitely better than 2006's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, in that Panic has gone from being laughably bad to bland and boring. They dropped the clever wordsmithing and emo titling from Fever in exchange for sincere sentiments and some vivid imagery.
"That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)," has a fitting subhead, as it is the epitome of the band's shift. They strip down, washing away the layered production of the past for a simple acoustic guitar riff. But instead of keeping to an identifiable sound, they jump into the lo-fi ragtime "I Have Friends In Holy Places," and then to a Shins-style downbeat lull. A little later, "Folkin' Around" comes up, a two-minute floorboards stomper that works better in its nakedness than anything else on the album.
