Wreckord Reviews: The album that caused panic and killed disco

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: DCD2
This cover art represents Death of a Bachelor perfectly. Fake, cheap and unimaginative.

If I were to tell you that Panic! at the Disco just put out a new album, I’m sure many of you would laugh it off and say “that band died in 2008.” Well, to a certain degree this claim is true. Over five albums, Panic! has lost nearly all of their founding members, leaving only the multi-instrumentalist Brendon Urie in the official lineup.

It’s not often that a single musician decides to continue a project that has lost 31 members in its time. With so many people jumping ship, it’s a wonder that the latest album, Death of a Bachelor, even came to fruition on Jan. 15.

At first glance, Death of a Bachelor seems to be a record trying too hard to blend in with today’s ‘hip’ youth. The album is a grab bag of everything considered popular these days: electronic synths, deep bass, heavily augmented vocal hooks, distorted guitars and lots of brass. In a way, by trying to appeal to so many genres Death of a Bachelor loses its identity. If it weren’t for Brendon Urie’s distinct voice and excessive use of horns, it would be hard to tell this is a Panic! at the Disco album at all.

Many of Urie’s lyrics have also succumbed to the same troubles as Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy. Though their first records were creative and cunning masterpieces, the imagination has dwindled over subsequent releases. A band has their entire lives to write a first album, but after that, deadlines lead to compromises that become their downfall.

The lyrics in Death of a Bachelor rely heavily on oxymorons and borrowed rhymes from grade school. The level of Urie’s mundane creativity is highlighted in the hook of “Emperor’s New Clothes” which is (I kid you not) “Finders keepers, losers weepers”. Seriously? Seriously? This is the level of songwriting that you’re proud to stand behind? Maybe this is why everybody left your band.

Although the level of Urie’s lyrical whimsy has fallen to a record low, his voice has retained some of its earlier finesse. The soaring falsettos and subtle vibratos delivered on this album are its only high point. Ballads such as “Death of a Bachelor” and “Impossible Year” display a more vulnerable side of Urie, while the more upbeat swing-inspired tracks such as “Crazy = Genius” and “LA Devotee” allow him to channel Panic!’s earlier years of angst.

As a whole, Death of a Bachelor descends from a haphazard amalgamation of big band and EDM-wannabe to a morose resolve of Fall Out Boy rip-offs and half-hearted crooning. Brendon Urie claims that the album aspires to be the marriage of Frank Sinatra and Queen, but in saying so, he disgraces both of them and himself.

Rating: 1 out of 5