Coming from Chicago, Panda Riots’ She Dares All Things opens with an up-tempo bare drum machine and a processed keyboard melody, making way for distorted melodic guitars and an angelic female vocal by Rebecca Scott. Backed by a solid bass line from Justin Cheng, it’s somewhere between pop and rock, making for a catchy opening to an engaging album.
You’d be forgiven for thinking of My Bloody Valentine’s classic Loveless as the second track kicks in, and for a substantial amount of the remaining material – “Suspense Kiss” possibly being the prime offender. We’re in shoegaze territory here where subdued verses make way for swirling, warped, and distorted guitar-driven choruses accompanied by heavily processed keyboards. The deployment of a drum machine (programmed by Brian Cook, also the guitarist) is an unusual twist in this otherwise all-so-familiar sound. At times a little weak sounding though, a real drum kit would have created some more oomph than processed beats and the bass could be more prominent throughout.
The female vocal is sweeter-sounding than honey but make no mistake in which side of rock or pop it lies—lyrics like “Ba da da, ba ba da, ba ba da”, “da da da da da da da da da daa” and “bop bop, ba da, bop bop bop, ba baa” feature on the choruses of tracks three, five and six respectively. “Olivia on the Downbeat”, doesn’t sound too dissimilar from The Cranberries’ “Linger” in places, albeit without the strings… it’s infectious however and if you let your guard down it’s difficult not to float away on the wash of melody. Always present are the throbbing guitars and keyboards, intelligent chord changes, and ethereal vocals.
Panda Riot could indeed be mistaken for a poor man’s My Bloody Valentine on first listen—but they’re trying to do something different on this album to make it their own, and they’re mostly succeeding.
Richard Donnelly
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