This might be the key scene in the Panics’ rags-to-riches tale. The story’s already taking shape: Perth band slogs away in hometown to some renown; impresses established figures (i.e. Gaz from Happy Mondays); following multiple UK jaunts, shifts to Melbourne and dedicates itself to Seriously Pursuing Music; writes songs for Cruel Guards, records them with big names (Scott Horscroft and Victor Van Vugt) and releases it on Powderfinger’s label. The Panics, it seems, would be worthy recipients of the riches in this neat narrative. Perth boys done good. Cruel Guards is an endearing record.

Geography and sonics link them to The Triffids (but certainly not AC/DC): there’s something of The Triffids strangely hot sounding out-west music here; something of the lyrical expanse in imagining/imaging Australia. The Panics have the uncanny ability to sound like a lot of different, familiar bands, without ever being a carbon copy. There’s plenty of Go-Betweens in here too, for instance. And ‘Something in the Garden’ channels The Church at their best, all creepy uncertainty and ringing guitar lines. And Jae Laffer’s reedy pipes out the front sound quite a lot like Dean Wareham from Luna and Galaxie 500.

The band’s sense of theatricality puts Cruel Guards in the orbit of Dappled Cities Fly’s Granddance. That too was an instance of a band stepping out from indie’s backlots to the grandeur and string sections of the bright lights, a statement of bigger ambitions. But where the template for Dappled is US indie rock, for The Panics it’s English and classic Australian indie; the ghost of a Brit Pop past haunts Cruel Guards.

For all the indie references poking through, this is a slick record. It’s dense and layered at every moment. It carries that aural excitation characteristic of a band groomed for more than the odd gig in front of mates. First single ‘Don’t Fight It’ is perhaps the weakest song on the album – a bouncy anthem with all the genuine joy of an insurance commercial. It’s where the band goes too far off and dives into the easy-listening-grooves end of their musical potential. Here the slick becomes an impenetrable sheen. Something like ‘Live Without’ is more impressive – an effortless blending of all that the band does well: melodic guitar-pop with an unrelenting drive, vocals falling into an unorthodox pop rhythm. Cruel Guards is a very easy album to take in large doses. And one of the few genuinely interesting guitar-based records released in Australia this year.

by Ben Gook