Modern science has concluded, years and years after everyone else knew it, that pop-oriented music is like cocaine to the brain. Hooks rattle and fire repeatedly like perpetual synapses, cycling through a manageable length of time with enough power to bring anyone back to life from the brink of spiritual annihilation.
Colton Holliday, a fellow Texan and talented to a degree that only the fewest of the few seem to reach, knows popcraft like some people know useless information: abundantly and uncannily. He's a jack of all trades who can do it all: write, produce, program, and rip into a guitar like a time machine tearing through the continuum.
And with his pet project The Panic Division's latest album, Eternalism, he has created a sleek modern masterpiece that will leave most rock bands smacking their lips in wordless envy. Blending the kind of dynamic energy that pulsed like a heartbeat through the 90's with the atmospheric drenchery of 80's AOR is no small feat, and yet its pulled off with sickeningly fun ease here.
Every track here is a rip-roaring single waiting to happen, with a couple in particularly being criminally infectious like opening gutpunch 'Silver Rings' and the industrialized rush of 'No Power Great Enough'. The overall production and songwriting approach is rather novel: Colton has a voice that's scarily reminiscent of Roland Orzabel (Tears For Fears), yet he uses it in such a way that makes one think of early Interpol or 2000's pop-punk upstarts like All Time Low. Quite a wonder to behear, in all honesty.
I own every album this maestro has set to record, but this third full-length is on another plane of excellence all its own. I can only listen through these songs in a state of bobbing, hypnotized awe and wonder why none of the Internet's top publications has gone crazy with accolades over this yet.
Looking for the perfect pop-rock album of 2012? You've found it, ladies and gents!
Buy It Here!
No comments:
Post a Comment