Panic! at the Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005)
When I was 13 and on MySpace, many users had personal usernames set to "[Name]! at the Disco" and it was really stupid looking back on it, because it was a moronic trend and also the fact that most of them looked like they wouldn't be able to deal with the social anxiety of being at a disco.
PATD is sort of like a unique dish consisting of two meals: Sugary candy on the left side of the plate, and a lobster on the right, but if PATD were their own stew, the recipe would (roughly) be:
1. Two cups full of weird but unique lyrics
2. Three teaspoons of teenage sleaziness
3. Three teaspoons of unexpected musical theatrics, to combat the previous teaspoons
4. Put all of the above into a pan of boiling water, and stir it with a spoon, occasionally sprinkling clever musical moments into the mix
5. After cooking for 39 minutes and 42 seconds, consume quickly and proceed to make it on various occasions, despite it not being typical of your diet, much to the dismay of your friends
If you haven't thought of your favorite bands as stews before, you're a complete dumbass and I hate you, but that's entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand. The subject at hand is that these songs are GREAT! Every song is full of nonstop quotable lyrics, and while vocalist Brendon Urie can occasionally sound like he's trying to do a Patrick Stump impression, he delivers the lyrics in such a confident manner that you only wish you had in your teenage years.
Of course, the real unsung hero of this entire album is guitarist Ryan Ross, not for his guitar-playing, but the fact that he wrote all of the lyrics and (to my knowledge, feel free to correct me and get a passive-aggressive "thanks" reply) essentially composed all of the songs, which is pretty damn impressive when you consider he was about 18 when he wrote this album.
Halfway into the album, just as you're really vibing to the pop-punk mixed with electronics that make you dance in your room alone, hoping no one will open the door and catch you with your headphones on, they switch it up and the entire musical theme becomes very baroque-esque in nature! It helps pace the album quite well, and serves as a great little musical plot-twist to play with the minds of unexpecting listeners, almost as if the album consists of two EPs, but no matter what they're playing, you can rest assured that quality control through the album is constant.
With the infectious nature of these songs (GET IT?! LIKE A FEVER?! A FEVER YOU CAN’T SWEAT OUT BECAUSE THE FEVER HAS A FEVER FROM HOW DAMN HOT THESE EMO BOIZ ARE!!), even with their wordy nature, they’ll infest themselves into your ears and you’ll be able to recite them with the same confidence and “holy shit, how did I remember all of that” as if you were flawlessly quoting Hamlet in front of your drama class.
And DAMN would some of these songs be PERFECT for that drama class!
From beginning to end, even if it doesn’t stick with you for whatever reason (could it possibly be that UR 2 OLD???), it cannot be denied that this album is certainly unique for its creative nonstop lyrics, changing musical themes, and general “holy shit, is this album actually going to work?” nature, almost as if a -very- distant emo relative of Mr. Bungle, but with much, much more teenage angst that they wear on the sleeves of their Morrissey t-shirt they got from Hot Topic.
Believe it or not, my friend actually tried telling me the other day that the clothing brand Joy Division was a band once. What a dumbass!
8/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
