Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
The first thing that hits you when listening to The Panic is the irrepressible fluidity that pervades the remarkably funky sound. On that note, the rhythm section of the band is impressively tight. Throughout the album, the bass and drums are closely locked together in perpetual groove; flowing the influences of ska, reggae, and stright-up rock. Every great band must be built on a solid foundation and The Panic's rhythmic flow is most definitely sound. This unshakable foundation makes a perfect pedestal for the towering talents of the frontman. The lead guitar contributions utilise a unique combination of finger-work and chord runs, rolling with feverish ska punch and more than a few nicely tweaked solos. While a good deal of the album is decidedly ska influenced, the guitar textures and rhythms used are very complex and the result is a genuinely refreshing and unique sound. This album is a very strong effort which deserves to be heard.
-Josh Hundert - Terminal City Weekly
The Panic describes itself as a ska-rock band, which is nothing to be proud of thanks to also-rans like Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. Thankfully, there are no sun-splashed horns on Bombast and Affectation, and no snotty punk-pop vocals. Instead the three-piece seems more interested in channelling the spirit of the sadly missed Sublime. The raspy vocals of Panic singer-guitarist Ryan Eugene bear more than a passing resemblance to those of the late Brad Nowell, and songs like “Misinformation” are more indebted to dub reggae than fourth-generation Two Tone.
...Whether you’re talking the spilled-Budweiser-and-burning-bud skanker “The Nothing You’ve Been Knowing” or the stoner-rock reggae workout “I Was Lost”, Eugene, bassist Chris Freeman, and drummer Chopper Weldrick sound determined to go places. And, no, Orange County doesn’t seem to be on their list.
By Mike Usinger
Publish Date: 16-Jun-2005
- The Georgia Straight
Discography
Bombast and Affectation (2004)
Some tracks from this album are available at newmusiccanada.com and at band site (famousape.com)
"She Asked" has enjoyed radio airplay.
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
The Panic isn't about shoe-gazing or chronic heartache, nor are they about musty uniforms or hairstyles that'll be embarrassing in five years. This band doesn't want to be the loudest or the fastest (though volume and bruising tempos will always have their place). The lyrics spring neither from a well of bottomless rage nor from an unquenchable need to shed vain tears; something less pretentious than the oft-hammered extremes. Having once accepted the old dictum of simplicity being a virtue, the songsmiths have endeavoured accordingly; thumping tunes, sanded chaos, a dancefloor and somewhere to be lost.
Perhaps The Panic does nothing you haven't heard before. There's a drummer and a man playing bass and yet another singer with a six-string. Yeah, this is not a foreign or refreshing format we're talking about. This band isn't about glitz or a cloying abundance of splashy effects. Woe be the listener who arrives to a show expecting as much. Perhaps their wares are a fusion of elements. Or maybe fusion is too considered a word for the disparate mash employed. It could be an apt criticism to say the band is floundering in a stew of its irreconcilable influences. Conversely, maybe The Panic has got it right and the alchemy has borne up a reward; coal wrenched and pressed into diamond.
All that and it could be said that those who aren't scrambling after some abstract notion of innovation are the ones whose work will come to be marked as singular and progressive. Arrive as a thief only to later find sturdier creativity. So, while presently sounding off with some melodious noises, The Panic's got nothing but the drive and (gasp) vision to be a better musical unit in one, five or ten years. What more does any band want?
Lofty, asinine talk to be sure, but what's a bunch of dreamers to do but aim high, inflate, overstate...but maybe, thereafter, come close to the mark.
Links
