Don’t Panic – 'For Your Consideration' Album Review

2 days ago
2 min read

Tracklist:

Conscience
Lifetime Away
Honest
Save Ben Reily
One and Done
Calls from Home
Free
Ready to Fly
Silent Engineer
Blame it on the Rain

Don’t Panic is a great name for a band (as well as being a great mantra for life), and whether or not the name is a Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy reference (which I hope it is), as a band they definitely don’t need to panic, as this album is sure, considered and energetic.

One of the things that immediately hit me about 'For Your Consideration' when I started to listen was just how polished the sound is. This feels like it belongs comfortably in the late 2000s, where beautifully mixed and produced rock music was a staple of every radio station and every music channel (who remembers music channels – I do!).

The second thing that hit me was just how good a lot of the songs are! The lead single from this album was “Honest” (which is track three on the album proper), and it’s probably one of the highlights of the album for me. It definitely has that feel of a lead single, as it’s not the heaviest thing on the album, but it’s like a taster menu for the album proper.

It’s not my favourite song on the album though – that honour falls to either “Calls from Home”, or “Free”, both of which are incredible songs. The chorus from 'Calls rom Home' definitely feels like something that you can imagine a crowd singing along with, and the whole song is exciting. 'Free', on the other hand, is a bit heavier in places, and has a chord sequence in the chorus that just feels really satisfying to me – I always describe it as scratching an itch in the back of my head, when a chord progression (along with the vocal line) just feels absolutely right.

That’s not to say the rest of the album is a disappointment at all – other highlights include “Save Ben Reily” - particularly the riff, “Ready to Fly” - where the sycopated chords at the start really give it a different feel, and “Blame It on the Rain”, which (when it started for the first time) I was ready to write off as the typical “slow song to end the album”, but when the song gets to 40 seconds in and it picks up, it’s an absolute rocker to the end.

In short, I really loved this album. I wavered whether it’s a four or five star album, and settled on four and a half, mostly just because a couple of the songs stood out a little less than the rest, so it’s not quite an album chock full of bangers (which is my five star criteria), but it’s still a great album that is definitely worth your time.

And apparently, a vinyl is coming as well, through Devil Dog Distro here in the UK, and SmartPunk in the US (and other countries maybe? I don’t know). So I may have to order myself one of those post-haste!