Panic Cell
What Doesn't Kill Us
5.4
A question for the group: how many of you have been in the following situation?
Other Dude: "So you're into music?"
You: "Yeah."
Other Dude: "What kind?"
You: "Metal."
Other Dude: "Oh, yeah? Me, too! That new Atreyu record kicks ass. Are you going to the Bullet For My Valentine show?"
Given the participants in this conversation, it's safe to say that Other Dude would probably like Panic Cell. I say "probably" because, in all fairness, there are a few moments on hand that do kind of shred, that are a wee bit heavier than David Draiman's ego or Saliva's portly singer, but for the most part, this is riffy melodic hard rock through and through, sticking closely to the blueprint of Avenged Sevenfold. (Vocalist Luke Bell sounds like a throatier version of M. Shadows.) In truth, it's not of poor quality, although arguably of poor taste, but either way, those of you who come 'round these parts looking for underground metal won't find it here, so go ahead and click "Back" now.
Panic Cell hail from the UK, and they sound like that radio-ready metallic rock meets a half-dozen or so leftover "active rock/post-grunge" bands of yesteryear. They’re on the upper side of competent, but they’re still generic, borrowing from bands who themselves are borrowing from Metallica and Alice In Chains and Maiden and so on. You've got your instrumental intro (“From Father To Son”), your melodramatic “Fade To Black”-lite ballad (“Soul Purge”), your tribal drumming bits, your huge choruses with your arena-metal backing vocals, your groovy breakdowns, your staccato post-Pantera thrash-styled riffing, your croon-to-a-scream lead vocals... You know all this stuff; you've heard it before; and unless you're in the market for another Avenged Sevenfold—this one regrettably lacking the studied guitar tandem of Gates and Vengeance)—I'd go ahead and click "Back" now.
So there’s a new twist on the old axiom: What Doesn’t Kill Us can still bore us half to death. Fans of Warped Tour metal will likely enjoy this. (Although take this into account: I will admit that I enjoyed A7x’s City Of Evil record, and yet I still wasn’t terribly impressed by this one.) Other Dude would probably like Panic Cell. With all of that in mind, I would wager that the majority of you would not. So go ahead and click "Back" now.
