Call it a comeback, or don’t, Panic At the Disco’s recent album Vices and Virtues is the first the group has put out in three years, but sadly it comes nowhere near the chart-topper that their first album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out ended up being.
Panic At the Disco has shown that they really only have one sound, and most of the songs on the new album sound like slight variations on their famous “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” hit from a few years back.
The album begins with “The Ballad of Mona Lisa,” which might initially fool a listener into believing that Panic was unveiling a new sound.
Alas, it is only Brendon Urie wailing in a lower octave than we’re used to.
“Hurricanes” proclaims in its chorus line that “You’ll dance to anything” but they underestimate their listenership, because I suspect few will want to dance to this.
“Memories” is filled with clichéd lines such as “You are the apple of my eye” and though we are only four songs into their album of fourteen, it does in fact seem like the album will be very very long.
Though songs like “Always” and “The Calendar” were more acoustic and offered a breath of fresh air from the usual studio-orchestrated electronic techno pop-punk configurations, they too started to feel like they were running long.
The album will certainly be a hit with those who enjoy the usual sound of Panic, but listeners expecting a new sound will be sorely disappointed.
In general, even for those who are die-hard fans, the album runs long and it begins to seem like the band has run out of ideas for lyrics and tunes as all of the songs start to run together.
Panic At the Disco clearly didn’t try too hard to push themselves on this album, and unfortunately, it shows.
