:: Track Listing

1. Legally Tender
2. Theory Is Famous
3. We Are Louder
4. Stroke My Genius
5. If You Were Once Young, Rage
6. Walk of Shame
7. Thanks for the Simulacra
8. My Commodoiies Have Been Fetishized
9. Weird Birds

:: Record Review

Panthers

Things Are Strange
(Vice; 2004)

Rating: 49%


Now I'm not saying that bands should pander to critical trends, but when your first album flops, and then you release an ass-kicking EP of five blistering, drum-tight rock beasts (to critical acclaim), the logical step when it comes to the sophomore LP is. . .?

Apparently, rock-punk-prog. Or so say the Panthers----after all, they go all epic on your ass with Things Are Strange; at least four of these nine tracks extend over seven minutes, for no apparent reason beyond a poor imitation of Isis' epics.

The Panthers have improved in precisely one way from their Let's Get Serious EP (2003), on which they got seriously serious: their production is a good deal better, but excepting a few of the songs on this disc, everything else about them has been downgraded. It's almost too cliché to even hint at: their major label move has resulted in little more than better production.

Where nearly every cut from Let's Get Serious had at least two face-chewing riffs to send you whimpering to mommy, similar-caliber hooks are far more scarce on Things Are Strange. "Legally Tender" doesn't have even one halfway decent hook, and it's one of the album's shorter tracks. Mostly it's just David Yow screaming unintelligible lyrics, which are best left undiscovered in the lyrics book: "When you're boned you're pretty / I really meant that." Thanks for that one, O phallic muse! I was thinking, "I like fucking you," but what you suggested is much more inspired.

Over-extended noodlings like the retardedly-titled "We Are Louder" do little to redeem an overwhelming paucity of memorable riffs, sidling into a sleazy bar on a weak melody at molasses pace. The over-used effects on the lead electric are icing on an empty cake, and the intermittent faux-catharses are a consequence of louder volume rather than great builds. And who invited Slash to the party for those solos, anyway?

Thankfully, some of the old Panthers talents reappear; "Theory is Famous" rides some downright pretty guitar figures into its somewhat disappointingly simple choruses (where's that great bass work we saw last year?). The chorus riff of "Stroke My Genius" is distortion heavy and thickly sinister, and once "My Commodities Have Been Fetishized" gets past a useless set of distorted introductory squalls, it fires a double blast of bass and guitar hooks into your stomach. Coming a little late to really redeem the album, it's nonetheless one of the best tracks Panthers have recorded, lacing its insistent rhythm with some sick bass hopping, as well as throwing down a beautiful bass-led bridge.

While the album should have ended there, "Weird Birds" doesn't really worsen matters---its three guitar hooks are repeated exhaustively, but at least they're decent riffs. Unfortunately, the over-length of Things Are Strange's closer undermines its higher quality relative to the other album epics, and reinforces an overarching feeling of disappointment with an album that could've been murderously good.

Why the band chose to go so obscenely grandiose and insubstantial on their sophomore effort is open to speculation (they attribute it to listening to psychedelic records, to which this one bears no similarity whatsoever). But ultimately the fact remains that the band's greatest strength, its capacity for rib-shattering riffs, is merely a skeleton of what it once was. And while "My Commodities" still teases some hope for a great full-length from "Brooklyn's answer to Comets on Fire," most of Things Are Strange serves as a warning against holding your breath. Amir Nezar :: 17 November 2004 |