It’s been a minute since I’ve written a music review, so I figured that I would kill two blue-jays with one stone here today: Indulge in sharing my guilty musical secret of the past few months, as well as getting some new content up.

Panic! At The Disco is likely a name that the modern young’n has heard tossed around by now. They’ve gotten quite a bit of press and airtime as of late, and in my opinion it’s quite deserved. As always, I have a twinge of guilt in mentioning my like for a band like this, because it lets on the brooding emo kid inside me, raging like I was 15 all over again. But try as I might, I can’t stop listening to this disc.

I first picked it up in November, after hearing that they were loosely a “Fall Out Boy-meets-dancehall” sound. Pretty damn close. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they are more Fall Out Boy then the group itself. They perfect catchy-ass songs and present them in a non-traditional structure.

The album has a largely vaudeville/dancepop feel to it, with creepy, minor organ tones and a mixture of drum machines and live percussion. True to the emo form, the lyrics are snarkily self-aware and at times biting, in a slightly more than adolsecent way. However, they are smart enough that they not only work for the album, but distinguish the group from the rest of their genre brethren I believe.

A mildly annoying sidebar here is the propagation of the latest trend (seen foremost by their label founders and friends, Fall Out Boy): retardedly long song titles. While sometimes refreshingly witty, get over it. It’s no longer cool to have entire paragraphs as titles.

Track highlights include “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage,” “Camisado,” “Time to Dance,” and “I Write Sins, Not Tragedies.” Admittedly, though, this is an album that I won’t skip a single track—which is a true marker of a solid album to me.

What amazes me the most about this album is the apparent maturity of direction and sound, seeing as the group was 1) founded on doing Blink 182 covers and 2) the kids are freaking young; like pre-20s young. To me, the disc doesn’t play as a debut, but rather a solid sophomore release or later. It doesn’t sound unpolished or overreaching in the slightest, and there is no trace of filler to bolster a few sparse hits.

All in all, this release falls just past the line of where emo pisses most people off. I would imagine it will appeal to a wider audience for that reason alone. I even hesitate to label the album emo, for it doesn’t posess the languishing, self-tortured (and over-done) notes of more traditional releases in the genre. In a dramatic, energetic and poppy fashion, the album pushes the envelope in terms of what a standard “pop” song can be (not standard chorus/verse/chorus/verse format). Accessible, infectious and just plain fun…