While it's a clear step up from Go, it's sometimes unclear whether or not this album can live up to the Commit This to Memory / Even If itWhile it's a clear step up from Go, it's sometimes unclear whether or not this album can live up to the Commit This to Memory / Even If it Kills Me / My Dinosaur Life trilogy. Ultimately, my answer is not quite, but it comes very close.
Panic Stations starts off strong with Anything at All, a barn burning opening track reminiscent of Attractive Today, Fell in Love Without You, or Woker Bee. It builds up a lot of energy and momentum that helps you forgive the immediate hiccup in the second track, TKO.
In my opinion, TKO is the weakest song on the album and a horrible choice for the lead single. With the dull, chugging bass line and an extremely lackluster chorus, this track does away with a lot of the energy that Anything at All created.
The third track, I Can Feel You, remedies this. I Can Feel You stands along some of Motion City's best, and is easily my favorite song on the album. It starts off with a slow, mellow, The Cure-sy vibe, and builds into an explosive bridge that will go down as one of the best moments in Motion City's discography.
The next song on the album, Lose Control, is a bit of an interesting case. It sounds almost nothing like the Motion City we know and love, and definitely threw me off at first listen. After a few listens, though, it grew on me. People criticize it for its generic chorus and bored-sounding singing, but I honestly think that was by design. If you explore Motion City's discography, you will find that "losing control" is not a good thing to them. He sings "woah, woah, it's time to lose control" as though he's dying inside because he IS.
Anyway, track five. Heavy Boots. It's classic Motion City, and like most of the rest of this album, sounds like it could have come directly off of I Am the Movie or My Dinosaur Life. It's high energy, fun, and deeply contemplative. Basically all of the things you expect from Motion City.
This theme is carried over into the album's centerpiece, It's A Pleasure to Meet You. It merits a similar description to Heavy Boots, but with a note that it's definitely a better song. Heavy Boots is a great song, but it can sometimes feel as though it's a bit safe or formulaic. It's A Pleasure to Meet You carries neither of those burdens in my mind. While the song can feel kind of chorus heavy, there's definitely enough variation to keep the song interesting all the way through, every time you listen to it.
The seventh track, Over It Now, is a bit different. Musically, it's pretty standard fair for Motion City and is definitely fun to listen to. Lyrically, it has some problems. While it's quirky and fun, I'm not a fan of the message it sends. It's a break up song, but not from their usual perspective. It's hyper-vindictive and angry, which I just don't think suits them very well. I find them to be at their best with more vulnerable, sensitive songs like Last Night or Hold Me Down, but maybe that's just me.
The next three tracks are Broken Arrow, Gravity, and Samurai Code. They're all okay songs, but they can kind of blend together, and they're all very similar songs. So this one blanket description will work. They're high energy Motion City Soundtrack songs about the things that Motion City write about. The worst song of the three is Broken Arrow, the best is Samurai Code, followed closely by Gravity. Also, I just love the line "It's not the weight of the world, it's just the way that I am" from Gravity.
Now, the final track, Days Will Run Away, is quite a bit different than the rest of the album and really the rest of their discography. Its quite stripped down, and their signature Moog synth is all by gone. It starts slow, and explodes during the bridge, like closing tracks tend to. What's interesting here is the subject matter. This is Motion City at their most nihilistic and hopeless. It's a very dark song, and I quite like it. Just be aware of how dark it is before listening.
On the whole, the album is good, but the latter half of the album falls short of glory, and the lead single was the worst song on the album. It's good, but it's no Commit This To Memory, Even if It Kills Me, or My Dinosaur life. However, with a better lead single and a wee bit more variation, it definitely could have been. I see this as a sign of good things to come from them.… Expand
