Friday, December 15, 2023

The 1981 Listening Post - Panache - Dancer at the End of Time

 Reviewed by Rob Slater

Released: 1981 Panache Dancer At The End Of Time Genre: New Romantic (????) Pop Melange Rating: 2.5 out of 5 [I don’t even know, I let it play] I don’t hate this, but I’m not sure why not. It’s all over the place. Some great bass lines, some great drum fills, some nice vocals, but then there’s the repetition (within songs), the horrible electronic drums, massive weird and random instrumentation, monotone ‘harmonies’, video game noises, sirens, repetition. BIG IN JAPAN I think some of the lyrics might be interesting. Mixing is totally strange and seems amateurish. It’s a pretty amazing mess. I don’t actually regret spending the time listening to it. There are periods of seconds, measures, sometimes even most of a verse or chorus that I really like, then it’s suddenly something else. It definitely sounds like early 80s with a dash of 70s peppered throughout. It’s a strange melange of pop genres. No. It’s an orgy of pop genres. 80s electronica, new wave meets disco DEVO, massive random instrumentation. Songs start out sounding like rock then end up somewhere else. “Mirror music on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all.” Oh, and I ran into dead ends finding much of anything about them. I’ll include the note from DISCOGS because everyone else who mentions the band uses this description, too. ;-) "Panache were a New Romantic band from the early 80s. Paddy (formerly of Cuddly Toys) formed the band by hiring Terry as bassist after doing the audition among 300 people through Melody Maker. The rest of members were selected among his friends. The band were particularly popular in Japan. Just before coming to Japan after their debut on Toshiba EMI, Colm and Paddy left the band. After disbanding Panache, Paul joined The Temple OV Psychick Youth.” OK. LAST SONG IS A LOST SPINAL TAP Side project single: It’s called “THE END OF ALL SONGS.”

No comments: