Panic! at the Disco returns with ode to classic rock ‘Viva Las Vengeance’

Brendan Urie returns with the first Panic! at the Disco album since 2018’s “Pray For The Wicked.”

For all intents and purposes, the band that we used to know and listen to in the mid-aughts is no more. Panic! has been a solo vehicle for Urie since 2015. This is really saying something for the fact that he was able to keep moving forward on his own and, even up to this point, keep the momentum going with a new album.

Opening with the lively title track “Viva Las Vengeance,” Urie gives a nod to original punk OG’s with those clanging chords that are reminiscent of The Clash (“Career Opportunities”). But everything else that follows is the pop-imbued punk and rock stylings that we’ve long heard from Urie.

Urie/Panic! again makes another nod to The Clash on the intro of “Middle Of A Breakup” but the rest is emo-pop as Urie intones the hook line “make-up sex in the middle of a breakup” in that high register vocals of his.

More retro sounds ensue in “Don’t Let The Lights Go Out” as we’re reminded of mid 70s pop balladry (a’la ABBA and Elton John). And yeah, Urie’s really pushing his vocals as he sings “who’s going to drive me tonight / who’s going to argue til they win the fight? / you’re the only one who knows how to operate my heavy machinery.”

Urie/Panic! borrows heavily from Thin Lizzy (“Boys Are Back In Town”) on how he approaches the verses for “Star Spangled Banger” as he sings about his younger days, perhaps when playing in a band was still just a dream. Here Urie intones, “We are the electric angels / we are the sixstring queens / we are the new Dead Kennedys / in the land of the brave / home of the freaks.”