Panic Room - Skin

It’s strange to think that Panic Room are on their third album – they of course formed out of Karnataka, a band I caught in concert years ago. To be honest I had gone to see support act Sleeping Giant who were themselves an offshoot of Mr So & So, and having such a great band as support plus having Steve Rothery stand up to play with SG as well probably didn’t help any and I wasn’t overly impressed with what I saw in the main act. But, I have always loved Anne Marie Helder’s vocals so I was really looking forward to this album, and straight away I knew I wasn’t going to be disappointed. The effective, atmospheric, artwork demands that the listener plays close attention, so I did. The music is effective, complex and layered, and is obviously just there as a vehicle as all focus are on the vocals. There is a good use of strings and plain old piano as opposed to complex keyboards, and the drums are sometimes incredibly effective. Ah, there is the word “Sometimes”. Yep, many are going to see this as a truly great album and not for the first time people are going to disagree with me, but I feel that while there are some truly great songs and wonderful performances this isn’t a great album.

Why? Because vocal delivery on many of the songs are similar throughout and there isn’t enough variety in the music either. I found that if I just played one song (and I honestly do love the opener “Song For Tomorrow”) then I enjoyed it much more than if I played the whole thing. There are times when the drums can actually be intrusive, and while the bass is warm and inviting the strinsgs and production do make me feel that I am being smothered in a blanket. “Screens” stands out like an oasis with it’s harder more rocking style which I thought was great, although the vocals weren’t as rough and ready as they could have been, and I just wish that there had been more of this.

So for me this is a missed opportunity and while I am sure that I will be returning to this often, it will only be for one or two songs at a time as opposed to working through the album in its’ entirety.