So, it turns out
the Panthers were only a hop, skip, and a jump away from sounding a whole lot like
Wolfmother. Taking their garage punk-infused indie rock and injecting it with a hefty dose of arena rock (
Led Zeppelin in particular),
the Panthers strap on the rock on their fourth album,
The Trick. Taking a quick listen back to 2003's
Let's Get Serious, it sounds like all the band had to do was turn up the swagger and turn down the angular, artsy guitar work in order to get to this point. Geoff Garlock's mid-range, gritty voice has made an almost seamless transformation into the deep, throaty yowling demanded by this new incarnation, Justin Chearno's manic noodlings have been tamed into tightly controlled heavy metal riffs, and Jeff Salane's jumpy prog-influenced drumming has been combed into a mechanized army of hard rock percussion. It's a formidable sound, and it results in some of
the Panthers' most consistent, not to mention good, songs to date. "Goblin City" is a really addictive track: it's swift, fire-licked, and howling -- the kind of song that belongs to speeding down a highway in the dead of night. Granted, the song's premise is a little silly, seeing how it is, after all, a song about a subterranean city inhabited by magical creatures; but if
the Panthers don't wear their mystical trappings as convincingly as
Robert Plant or, heck,
Ronnie James Dio,
The Trick is a fun ride while it lasts. Sure, this album might sound a little callous, and it might be about as intelligent as a lumbering Apatosaurus. But even if it's not as socially conscious as the band's earlier work,
The Trick finds a home in the beer-soaked hearts of the old-school metal crowd and those folks who simply want to rock out. ~ Margaret Reges