Di Athina Saraji – V A Classico
Death of a bachelor is the title for the brand new panic! at the disco’s album, on sale since 15/01/2016.
As the big fan I am I surely brought it as soon as I could, and I did not hesitate to listen to it.
In my opinion, this album represents everything the band has been and everything the band will be: it seems like they (or he, since the band is formed by only one member: Brendon Urie, the lead singer) found a certain poise. He stirred the old genres (which changed from album to album, until now) with new elements, and even though he maintained the style relatively close to the last album’s one, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die, the lead singer penned that’s akin to early Panic! (A Fever you can’t sweat out after strawpedoing a bottle of champagne).
The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that Brendon played every single instrument – except for the trumpet –, and this requires an extremely difficult and complex work.
Then, I would like to turn the spotlight to the many, manifold artist that indirectly contributed to this album: as Brendon said, he “wanted to make Frank Sinatra song and then to make a Queen song, and then to write lyrics like Pearl Jam”.
This melting of styles, apparently so unusual and technically difficult, worked perfectly, thanks to the extreme vocal range of the singer that pulled it off.
The product is 9 catchy, fun party songs and 2 throwbacks to the 50s (Impossible year and Death of a Bachelor) where Brendon channels his inner Frank Sinatra.
Death of a Bachelor also represents a change of the band itself, since it’s the first one-man-band album for Brendon, after the departure of the bassist Dallon Weekes and the drummer Spencer Smith with whom he made Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die in 2013; this is the first album for Brendon as producer too, helped by Jake Sinclair (producer for Fall Out Boy and Five seconds of summer).
Obviously this is my personal opinion and it is – and does not aim to be anyhow professional, so I strongly suggest to give it a try and decide by yourself if it is worth: you can find it on spotify!