“If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” once remarked Queen’s Brian May, and this entertainingly over-the-top seventh LP from Brendon Urie channels that philosophy in a rock-pop extravaganza channelling the genre turned up to 11. This is particularly in evidence in the track God Killed Rock And Roll, channelling Queen in rich guitar and high vocal overdubs, as well as Kiss of course with echoes of God Gave Rock and Roll To You, but also more recent OTT merchants The Darkness, and Muse, but also even those original glam 70s rock-popstars, The Sweet, not to mention many other identifying cliches and moments in rock and pop history.
Urie’s voice is powerfully impressive in range, and the opening title track also even has echoes of the punchy earlier career of Elvis Costello. There is, hopefully a mischievously ironic sense of parody and irony to much of this, with lyrics to match, such as on Local God, about being a band famous in your own small town only (“We signed a record deal at seventeen/ Hated by every local band/ They say we/ never paid our dues / But what does that mean when money never changes hands?”), or All By Yourself, which echoes the Nilsson classic. Middle Of A Breakup also also has a flavour of Costello in the vocals, but also feels like parody with lines such as “Oh shit you’re kissing my neck, kissing my chest … make-up sex in the middle of a breakup” and “Keep your disco / Give me T.Rex”. More humour and full-on Queen-isms are to be indulged in many track such as the full rock-n’roll Sugar Soaker, or Something About Maggie (“Gilly thinks that he's a DJ /Makes me want to slit my wrist”, and Do It To Death sums up the entire philosophy of the record (Take me to the limit … Growin' older happens fast /Nothing's gonna happen if you sit on your ass.”
Ridiculously hyperbolic, but irresistibly enthralled to the excesses of rock’n’roll, also guiltily enjoyable from start to finish. Out on Atlantic.
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