Just as anyone who was anyone a couple of years ago had a “The” in their band name, perhaps 2006 will be the year of the exclamation mark. ¡Forward Russia!, The Go! Team, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, and now Panic! At The Disco – it seems bizarre punctuation is going to be this year’s equivalent of the skinny-tie-and-suit-jacket trend.
P!ATD probably never cared about such trends though – they've got an eclectic range of influences that put the current crop of post-Strokes wannabes to shame. Admittedly they’ve got some twinges of emo, but who else can claim Fleetwood Mac and Counting Crows as their favourite bands with no trace of irony?
Friends since school, the four-piece have used such influences to come up with a debut that sounds like an entire record store on one disc. Cramming 19th century accordion next to bang-up-to-date synth zaps, they’ve divided the album into two halves: the first futuristic, the second nostalgic. Yet all the while they stay cohesive enough to provide some three-minute gems of kitchen sink emo-pop. The wonderfully titled "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage" is a perfect example of this: a pumping acoustic guitar-led party song, breaking down halfway through to some nigh-on euphoric dance bleeps.
Unsurprisingly, that forms part of the album’s “futuristic” half, but the more retrospective side of A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out is no less inventive. The band’s Las Vegas roots show themselves on the camp-as-Christmas show tune "There’s A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought Of It Yet." Complete with brass section and Lovecats-style jazz piano, you can almost see the accompanying tap-dance routine. Let’s just hope the record buying public are ready for such frivolity, because the world needs to hear Panic! At The Disco.
More reviews and articles like this on my music blog Bloody Awful Poetry.
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