Monday, 26 November 2012

Don't Panic - All Time Low - Album Review


October 9th (October 12th for Australians) celebrated the long awaited release of American pop punk band All Time Low’s fifth studio album, Don’t Panic.

This album is most definitely a step up from the band’s last album, Dirty Work. For a lot of fans, Dirty Work was a huge let down, claimed to be too poppy with too much auto tune, something that was not All Time Low. The band has said themselves that the album was a bit of a mistake, and signing with Interscope was the wrong choice for them.

The band decided to leave Interscope Records and create their new record as an unsigned band, later signing with their original label, Hopeless, to release the record. Don’t Panic seems like it is the album that Dirty Work should have been.

Don’t Panic definitely seems to take all the positive aspects from their previous albums, and puts them all together to create the twelve tracks, but mainly, the songs seem to take inspiration from their earliest releases Put Up or Shut Up and So Wrong, It’s Right.

The album starts with The Reckless and The Brave which was also the first single. The song was a perfect decision for the album’s opening track. The song is a fun and energetic start to the album, and gives you just a slight taste as to what you’re in for with the rest of the tracks.

The stand out songs would probably have to be If These Sheets Were States, So Long Soldier and the third single off the album, Somewhere In Neverland. All of these tracks sound like what All Time Low is really meant to be. They are true pop punk tunes, they’re fun, loud songs with lots of guitar and lots of drums, and are songs that seem like they would really go off live.

The album has a variety of guest vocalists including Jason Vena from Acceptance on the track Outlines, which also had Fall Out Boy front man Patrick Stump as co-writer, Anthony Raneri from Bayside on So Long Soldier and guest harmonies from Cassadee Pope on Backseat Serenade.

There aren’t really any songs on the album that can be considered as a least favourite, All Time Low have managed to create an album full of great pop punk tracks, with no let downs and it has impressed the fans and even those who weren’t previously fans immensely.