3 out of 5

Label: Secretly Canadian

Produced by: ?

Panoply Academy may have been one of the first “weird” bands I random-discovered, drawn in by a RIYL-reviewclaiming Modest Mouse as reference – which I only sort of get now, but didn’t get at all then – and, post purchase, leading to my first label obsession, Secretly Canadian.  While the SC label did offer me up another unique vocalist – using  Panoply’s Darin Glenn for comparison – via June Panic, and another batch of noise makers via Racebannon, the rest of the imprint’s output was decidedly, uh, non-Panoply-ish.  So they stuck out in that regard, and also in my collection as a whole, which, at that point, was lacking in off-the-beaten-path sounds.

Panoply’s fragmented indie pop – U.S. Maple filtered through a Seattle bop (which is part of where that MM reference probably came from, alongside Isaac Brock’s lispy off-key squeal) – is instantly identifiable, especially when topped with Darin’s high-pitched trill.  Lyrically, they trawl in odd phrasings that seem to hint at violence, and the music will flip-flop between catchy riffs, landing just long enough on a killer breakdown to commit whichever moment to toe-tappable memory.  Their final album, No Dead Time, is probably the best example of that, paring off a lot of sampling and experimental excess for a “pure” form of that approach, and pacing those breakdowns appropriately such that you’re never overwhelmed by the group’s inability (or desire) to not stick to a plan for more than a few notes at a time.

…And yet, you’ll see that I’d rate this lower than their earlier albums.  This is the clearest, most concise example of Panoply, but it turns out that the dilutes the freshness that comes from letting them fuck up and fuck around.  Prior discs didn’t quite seem weird for weird’s sake: there was a matching anarchy to them; so many ideas that the only way forward was to combine them all.  No Dead Time, on the other hand, feels a bit too practiced; a bit too expected.  These guys were releasing yearly albums, so it’s not as though there was a big gap between this and Concentus, but, then again, we didn’t hear from them after this one, so maybe the concept of the ever-morphing Academy had played itself out.

No Dead Time is absolutely a Panoply fix if you’ve been through your other discs.  It’s well effected, catchy in spurts, and sounds like Panoply.  The sensation is just a bit more fleeting than the one triggered by earlier albums.