Cruel Guards the latest record from the five-piece Aussie band The Panics. Overseas, the album has received many accolades and propelled the band into popular frenzy. Almost a year after its Australian debut, the album comes stateside October 7th.
Despite solid efforts on thier previous albums, The Panics remained largely under-the-radar. Cruel Guards shows a band with a sharpened métier and expanded sound; undoubtedly The Panics best work to-date.
Through his charmingly nasally vocals, Jae Laffer delivers poignant lyrics. And the instrumental interplay is most impressive. Cruel Guards is an ensemble of lush guitar partnered with plain-stated piano, and whimsical horns/strings moderated by rhythmic percussion. Never does it seem that any one piece crowds out the others.
Grabbing from a myriad of influences: everything from Motown to Gothic rock, it's a challenge to categorize the sound of Cruel Guards. It's as much a soft rock album as it is a pop record. So while cliché labels might not be able to define Cruel Guards, one thing is certain: the record is well-crafted.
Perhaps a little too well...
The album's biggest flaw is its overdone and cloying production. Tracks that should be intense, never seem to reach the fervor that's expected with such intimate and distressing topics. In the pursuit of perfection, the band loses its believability and the music becomes terribly lackluster. But even with its faults there is plenty to enjoy about Cruel Guards, and it will be interesting to see how The Panics are received in the US.
The Panics- Get Us Home
Despite solid efforts on thier previous albums, The Panics remained largely under-the-radar. Cruel Guards shows a band with a sharpened métier and expanded sound; undoubtedly The Panics best work to-date.
Through his charmingly nasally vocals, Jae Laffer delivers poignant lyrics. And the instrumental interplay is most impressive. Cruel Guards is an ensemble of lush guitar partnered with plain-stated piano, and whimsical horns/strings moderated by rhythmic percussion. Never does it seem that any one piece crowds out the others.
Grabbing from a myriad of influences: everything from Motown to Gothic rock, it's a challenge to categorize the sound of Cruel Guards. It's as much a soft rock album as it is a pop record. So while cliché labels might not be able to define Cruel Guards, one thing is certain: the record is well-crafted.
Perhaps a little too well...
The album's biggest flaw is its overdone and cloying production. Tracks that should be intense, never seem to reach the fervor that's expected with such intimate and distressing topics. In the pursuit of perfection, the band loses its believability and the music becomes terribly lackluster. But even with its faults there is plenty to enjoy about Cruel Guards, and it will be interesting to see how The Panics are received in the US.
The Panics- Get Us Home
1 comment:
this song has a melancholy sound, which gets richer with the range of instrumentals added... but i am sort of gagging on the cloy.
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