A-Panic! at the Disco
Death of a Bachelor
(Fueled by Ramen)
The new album by Panic! at the Disco is called Death of a Bachelor, but its core concern isn't death so much as the afterlife. Brendon Urie, the band's emphatic mind and mouthpiece, wants to know what happens in the wake of a bacchanal, when the wildest urges thrash only in the rearview. "Welcome to the end of eras," he sings on "Emperor's New Clothes," sounding rueful as well as relieved.
If Urie, 28, sounds like someone adjusting to new circumstances, there may be good reason for that. He's a couple of years into married life, which imbues songs about being lonely while in love, like "House of Memories," with an intriguing frisson.
Meanwhile, another union in Urie's life has officially been torn asunder. After a series of personnel shake-ups, his band, formed in 2004 by childhood friends in Las Vegas, recently scaled all the way back to a solo act. (As an amusingly blunt credit in the CD booklet puts it, "Panic! at the Disco Is: Brendon Urie.") Not that the album, which was largely produced by Jake Sinclair, sounds any less Day-Glo spectacular than the group's past dispatches.
Panic! at the Disco has always favored a style steroidal and slick, and Urie isn't out to reinvent it here. So if the album's title is meant to evoke Death of a Ladies' Man, the 1977 album by Leonard Cohen, the analogy never scratches past the surface. A larger touchstone, especially on the title track, is Frank Sinatra -- although Urie doesn't have the vocal subtlety or the empathy to flesh out his emulation.
What he does have, now as ever, is panache: He's a firecracker of a frontman, unafraid of strident commitment to a garish conceit. On "L.A. Devotee," he proudly sings of "drinking white wine in the blushing light." On "Victorious," he evokes the flamboyant swagger of Queen and the mechanized gleam of Daft Punk.
-- NATE CHINEN,
The New York Times
B Chairlift
Moth
(Columbia)
The mile-high atmosphere of Boulder, Colo., has added just the right amount of rarefied air and icy bite to everything Chairlift has done. Imagine Bjork in her pop prime fronting the oblong, synth-skronky Boards of Canada without either's usual elliptical lyricism, and there's choppy contralto Chairlift singer Caroline Polachek and her small, chilly unit.
What makes Moth different from its two chattering predecessors is its molten-hot thawing of Chairlift's cold calculation with gently swaying melodies and an overall brassiness. It may be a synthetic trumpet's toot that gives "Romeo" its brassy syncopation, or the slow skanking "Ch-Ching" its ska-reggae slinkiness. Every element is geared toward warming up its sound.
In particular, on the clicking "Crying in Public," the foot-stomping "Show U Off," and the flickering "Moth to the Flame," Polachek sings as if she's ready for a kiss on the lips rather than a kick in the shins. On occasion, Moth's smooth, warm tones and easygoing melodies (e.g. the aforementioned "Crying" and its flowing "I'm falling for you, I'm falling for you" refrain) give Chairlift the feel of telephone hold music. At least it's a call you'll take.
-- A.D. Amorosi,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
B+ Daughter
Not to Disappear
(Glassnote)
The first EPs and the 2012 debut album If You Leave from London trio Daughter were hushed, mainly acoustic affairs tinged with melancholy atmospherics and restrained tension. Not to Disappear is bigger and bolder and, at times, more embittered.
Elena Tonra sings in a beautifully introspective, clear-toned alto, and the album still has moments of calm, such as "Made of Stone." But "Fossa" and "Mothers" build to emphatic climaxes worthy of Florence & the Machine, and there's an anger and aggression in the ominous "Alone/With You" and the skittery "No Care" that dispel any sense of placid acceptance. Best of all are forceful, reverb-drenched tracks such as the fabulous "How," which, with Igor Haefeli's shimmering electric guitar and Remi Aguilella's cymbal-crashing percussion, sounds like Sigur Ros gone pop. These are songs meant to fill a big room.
-- Steve Klinge,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Style on 01/26/2016