About 17 seconds into Panic! at the Disco’s fifth studio album, Brendon Urie is already wailing through an absurdly long, raspy note. But, if you’d forgotten, such is the theatrical flair of a band that found success with face-painted emo in 2005, before veering into 60s-style classic rock and then back again. Death of a Bachelor sees frontman Urie’s powerful voice wielded like a hammer, sometimes inspiring a mild headache – again, see opener Victorious – but elsewhere paying homage to, of all people, Frank Sinatra. There’s horn-driven pep on Crazy=Genius and macabre hedonism charted on Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time, with its “champagne, cocaine, gasoline / and most things in between” checklist. The album’s protagonist, a disillusioned charmer who sounds as though he needs a nice hot chocolate and night in after all this partying, grates after a few songs. The band would do better to substitute some more original melodies for all the wide-eyed, slickly produced gusto.
