Review Summary: A very bold debut from a young band. "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out" is short, but packed to the brim with catchiness and satire.
When I was around ten years old, I saw the Panic! At the Disco music video for “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” on the MTV music video channel. I would watch this channel for hours in the 2005 time period, ignoring the hip-hop/R&B videos and eagerly waiting for the rock ones (which didn’t seem to come often enough). I always appreciated a good Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance video. The one for “I Write Sins” was my first experience with the band Panic! At the Disco. I remember that it had similar catchiness to Fall Out Boy, except something was a little bit different. It must have been in the band’s image and lyrics, because the singing style and instrumentation was familiar to me, although Panic! Did offer some stylistic differences in instrumentation.
Eight years later, here we are, confronting their debut album. “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out”. Of course, the song mentioned above is included in this release, as well as another early song of theirs that I liked in my childhood, “But It’s Better If You Do”. I don’t remember if I really heard any other songs of theirs back then. If I did, I don’t remember.
After listening to the album all the way through, and re-listening to most of the songs again after that, I was surprised to find that I really liked the album. There were definite shortcomings that I noticed, but for the most part, I found myself listening to a very solid album. Panic! At the Disco is a unique band in that their fan-base is always changing (because of their ever-changing styles) and that they provoke a whole lot of controversy. If there was ever a love/hate band, I feel like it would be them. And even now, I would be somewhat embarrassed to tell certain people that I kind of dig this album. Why? Because we live in a world where people like their music scenes/followings set in stone, therefore sometimes it isn’t really acceptable for somebody into an underground hardcore scene to also be a Panic! fan, for instance. If that makes sense. Whatever the case, the industry will often treat a band like Panic! poorly; who change styles and challenge their audiences without necessarily being established enough to pull it off.
Getting into the album. The first four tracks, excluding the introduction, are very strong, and are arranged in way in which they flow surprisingly well. “The Only Difference…” is a strong opener; the instrumentation has a certain bounciness to it that gels well with the catchy vocals. It’s quite an attention grabbing song, which is ironically what Vocalist Brendon Urie happens to be singing about on this track. “Swear to shake it up, if you swear to listen” is repeated again and again in the catchy chorus, at the end of which features a very interesting vocal melody that hits you like a curveball (a harmonic minor melody, maybe?). Urie doesn’t even give you time to think about the theory behind it; the advancement to the verse is instant. That seems to be a theme for this album actually; a force that seems to just push the music along quicker, quicker, and quicker.
“London Beckoned Songs” is also an excellent track, and is wisely placed after the first song. “London” seems to be the stronger of the two, even though the first track is still very good on its own. The lyrics follow suit to the previous track in a way, with a fun satire-filled commentary on the music industry. Analogies of the industry, such as squeezing fame out of bands as if it were a mechanical process, are applied tastefully in a “poke-fun” kind of way.
“Nails for Breakfast” and “Camisado” retain interest as well. They’re very wordy, but catchy and lyrically fun. The techno influence can really be felt in these two songs especially.
That charm and romanticism seems to exhaust itself by “Time to Dance”, which is one of the album’s weaker songs in my opinion (even though it was one of the first recorded on the demo which got them signed onto Pete Wentz’s label, along with “Nails for Breakfast” and ‘Camisado”). The tongue-in-cheek word play seems to wear especially thin here, and there were also some techno-influenced elements that I wasn’t too fond of.
However, the album regains interest with “Lying is the Most Fun”. The soft beginning of this track is a much-needed change of atmosphere, though the pace is still driving. This track is one of the strongest on the album, if not the strongest. The subject matter is gritty, about a cheated-on lover that has a spiteful heart, and very much in the vein of Panic!’s common vocabulary (“testosterone boys and harlequin girls”). However, the unwarranted, too-long intermission directly after it kills the momentum. Without it, or with a much shorter, simpler intermission, the momentum would have carried perfectly into “But It’s Better if You Do”, which then Segway’s almost flawlessly into “I Write Sins”.
I completely understand the meaning behind the “intermission”, and even the appeal. Just the idea of half the album being electronic influenced, and the other drawing from organic instrumentation is interesting in itself. My thought is that it may look good on paper, but when listening to the whole album, it’s easy to see that it throws the flow off course. Maybe a complete interruption is what was intended, but I can’t help but think of how smooth the later half of side 1 could transition into side 2. All in all, I find that the execution of the intermission does not really add to the album.
“Esteban” and “There’s a Reason” are really hard to get into. The former is an acoustic guitar driven song, but with the full band, while the latter almost has a Broadway feel to it. Again they were really hard to like, for me at least. The lyrics don’t really carry a lot of purpose, almost as if they were just written to fulfill the requirement of being a sub-par Panic! song. Although there is some new instrumentation thrown in, I find that these two tracks are highly inaccessible, to the point where I prefer “Time to Dance” over them (they’re completely different, I know).
The album does manage to pull together a really strong close with “Build God, Then We’ll Talk”. An accordion melody is softly played over vocals as jumpy guitars and drums jump in dramatically and sporadically (most importantly, they are able to pull this off without making it sound too cliché or tired). With hilarious, satire-filled lyrics about the whole “cheat on your spouse in a ***ty motel” deal, it’s hard not to like this song. Not to mention a chorus and short cello interlude that pokes fun at “My Favorite Things” in the most sarcastic way possible.
“A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” is a relatively short album, but packed to the brim with substance. It has its strengths and faults, but ultimately it serves to be an interesting listen. For any fan of Fall Out Boy and their style, and even their habit of naming songs with extremely long (and sometimes unrelated) titles, Panic! At the Disco would be a good fit. Undoubtedly, this is not the best album in the pop-punk world, but it does hold some serious value as a bold debut from a young band.
8/10
