Review of: ‘Pray For The Wicked’ by Panic! At The Disco

To say I was looking forward to this album would be overstating it. Brendon Urie’s last album ‘Death Of A Bachelor’ being only passable did not help, but I did like ‘Say Amen (Saturday Night)’, the lead single for this new album, so maybe Brendon would be able to salvage something from this?

Unfortunately, he really didn’t. ‘Pray For The Wicked’ is a total mess from start to finish, an album that could have easily turned out catastrophically awful, but thanks to Brendon Urie’s ability to command an album like this, it’s merely bad: nothing more, nothing less. And, unfortunately, pretty much all of this album’s issues can be boiled down to one fundamental issue: melody. The only melody that makes up an overwhelming majority of these songs are huge, anthemic, garish blasts of horns that don’t so much come across as melodic, but more staccato and indistinct than anything else. It’s worst on ‘(Fuck A) Silver Lining’, ‘King Of The Clouds’ and ‘The Overpass’ that all fall in similar territory of being too melodically abrasive to be all that memorable. Even when some synth tones break through the overstuffed mixes like on ‘Roaring Twenties’, they are often far too high and squealing to connect fully to be memorable. It is almost as if it is Urie’s intention to replicate a similar style to Panic!’s debut album, ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’, but just without a band this time and with a few modern touches.

On that topic, why are there trap and hip hop elements on this album? Is Urie that desperate for mainstream attention? Between the trap snares on ‘High Hopes’ and the rigid hi hats crowbarred into the final chorus on ‘Hey, Look, Ma I Made It’ that clash with the rest of the instrumentation horrendously, I struggle to understand the reason they would be included, and what the appeal is.

That does not mean to say this album is totally throwaway, it does occasionally stick the landing, the potent souring hook on ‘Old Fashioned’ is pretty sticky, even if there’s no real crescendo to pay off the build up, and, despite all their flaws, both ‘Say Amen (Saturday Night)’ and ‘High Hopes’ do connect lyrically with the former discussing letting everything go on the weekend, and the latter being about Urie’s rise to fame.

On that note, the lyrics on this album are also a total mess. I have close to no idea what Urie is trying to say on this album. While ‘High Hopes’ is the down to Earth track about working your way to fame, while ‘King Of The Clouds’ is a song literally written whilst Urie was high on drugs. This is the level of messiness we are looking at. I can appreciate Urie finding some closure in the albums dying moments, as he acknowledges there will be a time when no one will care about the art he poured his heart and soul into, but the album is nowhere near cohesive enough to properly pay it off and make it worthwhile.

Overall, Panic! At The Disco’s ‘Pray For The Wicked’ is far from the worst thing ever, but it’s still only a strong 2 / 5. A failure that is marginally redeemed by good performances and a few good songs.

Rating: 2 / 5

Best Songs: ‘High Hopes’, ‘Say Amen (Saturday Night), Dying In LA, Old Fashioned

Worst Songs: ‘The Overpass’, ‘King Of The Clouds’