The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. I’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
There’s no shortage of bands like Panic Shack, but there’s room in my heart for a million more. That’s especially true, if the bands are putting out albums as energetic, funny, well-made and flat-out fun as the Welsh punks’ self-titled debut.
Panic Shack, like Dream Wife, Lambrini Girls, Winona Fighter, Amyl and the Sniffers, Wet Leg, and the Last Dinner Party, among others, make hook-heavy rock music that offers insight into their female experience and notes about where there is room for improvement.1 Panic Shack’s take on femme-fronted punk-adjacent music is heavy on busy, dance-y sounds and well-executed vocal harmonies. Musically, it has as much in common with Riot Grrl bands as it does with Yard Act, and that makes Panic Shack feel like a spiritual descendant of the Slits’ raunchy, raucous grooves. The album’s cheeky, posterior-baring cover feels like an homage of sorts, too.2
Sonically, this means that at any given time, there’s a good chance Panic Shack is throwing a lot at listeners. Songs’ tempos are always somewhere between ripping and a brisk, psychedelic jog thanks to frantic drumming and pulsing basslines with more bounce than a trampoline. The tones tend to be fiery due to the bright guitar licks delivered with gusto or aggression, depending on the song’s goals. Plus, there’s often an extra accent instrument somewhere in the mix — a mariachi trumpet, some squelching synths or pounding keys played in tandem with a guitar riff. Lead singer Sarah Harvey provides the ultra-charismatic center of gravity that keeps Meg Fretwell and Romi Lawrence’s guitar, Emily Smith’s bass and Nick Doherty-Williams’ drums spinning smoothly.. Whether Harvey is glibly talk-singing, howling with rage or somewhere in between, Harvey is an incredibly charming performer who can and will catch the attention of the type of listener who would describe themselves as “not really a lyrics person.”
Sometimes Harvey’s words are pointed and furious. “Smellarat,” for example, is snarling vitriol aimed at toxic and predatory scene-hopping men. Sometimes, the lyrics are funny. “Personal Best” is all about the ill-advised practice of taking psychoactive substances while running. Oftentimes, Panic Shack’s songs combine humor and anger. “Gok Wan” and “Tit School” are each songs that radiate incandescent rage over body shaming and unhealthy beauty standards. Both songs skewer the subject with dark humor, and as is the case for every song on the album, it sounds like Panic Shack had a blast playing the hell out of them.
“Gok Wan” opens with Harvey declaring that she does squats for an insane amount of time each day. It starts at the absurdly impractical two hours a day and escalates to the incredulous and cruel 12 hours per day. Every verse is also punctuated by the infamous Kate Moss quote, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”3 Panic Shack subtly hints that the era of fashion that made Moss a household name and the female form it marketed to the masses may have been damaging. There’s a group shoutalong of “I look good — this is all I do/ My body is yours – enjoy the view,” and near the end of the song, Harvey sneers “Who needs brains when you’ve got hip bones likе mine?/ I learnt this from you mum, I must be doing fine.” OK, maybe it’s about as subtle as a structure fire. Meanwhile, “Tit School” revels in the irrelevance of those bygone expectations while acknowledging their effect. Harvey makes a series of breast-based puns — “I didn’t go to Brit school/ I went to tit school/ I didn’t get straight As/ I got double Ds/ I didn’t go to Bedales/ Instead, I got free meals,” before acknowledging that a curvier figure used to be something that drew scorn — “They call me thick/ They call me Scruffy/ They call me loud/ They call me taffy/ They call me rough/ They call me chubby/ Now, it’s what you want to be.” The two songs take slightly different approaches to the same topic and merge to present a cohesive statement. Panic Shack know appearance-focused inanity is garbage, but they’re proud of who they are, confident in the image they project and are willing to use whatever’s at their disposal to take the fight to weak-minded misogynists.
In that spirit, the album closes with “Thelma & Louise,” a song that true to its title source is all about friends bound by platonic love facing down the world. It’s a sweet tune, a bit lighter than some of the album’s most blistering material and a nice way to wind things down while still working in references to The Simpsons, criminal acts and firearms. It closes by cycling through its extended chorus “I’d ride for you/ I’d die for you/ I’d lie for you/ I’ll cry with you” three times. The use of “you” is a canny bit of parasocial songwriting, because by the time the album ends, the ride or die feeling is absolutely mutual.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Three, Episode Fourteen
– The ideal way for a white guy to play a Japanese character: just dress them up and don’t do anything else.
– “Now I see the tragic side of dance marathons!”
– “My little son, my little seed, my little, uh…” / “Legal responsibility?” / “Sure, that’ll work.”
– “Gavin, I think I know what would cheer you up?” / “If my Mom came back to life and murdered you?”
– Little bit of Mark McKinney acting: the unnecessary but very appropriate stress he puts on the word ‘beans’ in the sentence “Can you tell me where the lima beans are, please?”
– “Shouldn’t you have told him I live in Winnipeg?” / “Slipped my mind.”
– “The only teacher you should listen to is your English teacher, but not too much, because remember: no one understands you.”
– “You know, now that I think about it, I think it’s important to let liquor be the wind beneath your wings.”
– “Stand up to your dad. He may tower over you now, but as he begins to shrink, you pick your day.”
– “Keep your underwear in a bowl.”
– Laughed at the swastika scar. “Is that a problem for you?”
– “Hello nurse, I’d like to put this patient on a hundred CCs of, uh, drugs.”
– “I read my wife forty poems. She likes them. No really, she said so.” = Conor ten years from now
– “I’m not gay. Then again, I never used to like asparagus.”
– “Look at Bruce here, with his athletic ability and incredible ability to drink.”
– “Well, parts of you will be very sorry!”
Sherlock and Daughter, “Doubting Thomas” – Suddenly things have clicked in place. More at Captain’s Log. But have to note that the writer for this episode is Micah Wright of the Muscogee Creek Nation, the director is Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Sami on her father’s side and First Nations on her mother’s. Plus Blu Hunt of the Lakota is the titular daughter. Progress is slow but it happens.
The Practice, “Means” – DB Woodside is a Black man who came to the aid of another unfairly searched for shoplifting at a drugstore, somehow started a riot, and came to throw a guard through the window. How do you argue for the defense? Bobby goes with the controversial argument used in the Reginald Denny trial that in certain situations Black men just can’t help be aggressive. Eugene hates this, goes along for a while, and then rejects Bobby’s argument in the closing argument! Obviously this is trying to grapple with race, racism, and the courts, but I can’t say how well it gets there. Doesn’t help that a white man wrote the script, though he self aware enough that Eugene says to Bobby “there is no way you can understand what it’s like to be a Black man.” Probably helped that the director was Oz Scott, an accomplished Black filmmaker. There’s also a second plot that ends with Ellenor punching her obnoxious client, but it’s not very interesting beyond that.
The X-Files, “Duane Barry” and “Ascension”
Pro tip: if you don’t want to seem like there’s something wrong with you, don’t talk about yourself in the third person. I was so sick of hearing “Duane Barry” by the end of this first episode that I was going to jam an alien tracking device into my own sinus cavity so someone would take me away from it all.
Aside from that, this is a good set of episodes, especially for Mulder. (I assume this was where the show had to shuffle Anderson off-stage for a while for maternity leave. When she’s back, I’ll be glad to see something other than close-ups of Scully’s face or carefully composed shots of her sitting in front of a desk.) His empathy and willingness to believe gets used against him in “Duane Barry,” or so he initially thinks, and it’s played well, with a series of established character beats–of course Mulder would quickly abandon the all-business, no-belief strategy set up by CCH Pounder (!!), of course he’d get swept up in the personal connection, of course he’d rely on Scully–eventually leading to a real, heart-in-throat surprise when it comes to how, when his life is on the line, he orchestrates Barry’s shooting and uses Barry’s trust in him to do it. The rug pull after that is classic X-Files, with Barry’s story being confirmed as more real than anyone wanted to believe–if there’s a misstep here, it’s that cold open that effectively showed us he was telling the truth. I love how that’s used as characterization for Pounder, too. She’ll probably only be a one-off character, but we learn something about her thoroughness and her integrity from how she pursues the uncomfortable facts about Barry even when they go against her view of the universe and how she seeks out Mulder to tell him about it all. Scully running the implant across the grocery store scanner is a wonderful beat too. I always love the combination of the mundane and the eerie.
With Scully in Duane Barry’s hands, Mulder is tightly wound and ready to snap all through “Ascension,” and it leads him into some unusual directions–out-and-out violence against Barry, amped-up (but correct) paranoia about Krycek, and even a beautifully photographed action set-piece where he climbs out of a cable car. (I know some of those shots are so stylish because they’re hiding a stunt double, but they still look incredible.) Even knowing that the series would have to do some maneuvering around Anderson’s pregnancy, I was still shaken by Scully’s abduction carrying past the end of the episode; it’s similar to our leads getting cocooned back in “Darkness Falls,” just a degree past where I expect the show to stop. The series probably knows that the audience expects Mulder and Scully to have plot armor, and even though it chooses not to take that away, it uses it, and it knows a ding to that armor can have a rattling effect.
Still surprised the Krycek plot’s going by so quickly, but I loved Mulder discovering the cigarette butts in his car’s ashtray.
Taken, “High Hopes”
Absolutely sublime scene between Russell and Owen in this episode, with Russell immediately understanding who and what Owen is (even if he still underestimates exactly how ruthless and untrustworthy he is). Owen does some square-jawed, steely bluster to try to get through it, and Russell doesn’t buy it for a second. The tragedy is that even being smart to see through Owen’s trustworthy American hero pretense can’t save him or even let him be sure that his sacrifice will save his son.
Feels like there’s also the idea in this installment that Russell can see through Owen in part because Owen’s putting less and less effort into the facade. Not only has he tanked his marriage–Anne’s furious resentment over him displacing her father and sending him into a decline is a particularly good note–he’s not even bothering to maintain his professional connections. The same subordinate who happily toasted him at his wedding is now seething under his thumb and looking for any way out; he’s trying to find Jacob not to impress Owen but to destabilize him. And why not, when Owen has made his abuse and coercion of his subordinates explicit, when he’s made them into “non-people” so that they’ll have no option but to keep working for him? No surprise that all this has to lead to more murder, and the double homicide on the highway feels appropriately brutal. (“You probably wont’ believe me, sweetheart, but I’m really sorry about this.”) Anne’s terror as she presses herself against the car door, unable at first to find the handle because she’s in such a panic, is hard to watch.
Also, metallic tumor snake-scorpion! It’s a shame that scene is marred by bad fire effects and an overwrought score, because that implant is awesome, and the surgery turning this improvised operating room into a slaughterhouse rules.
Man, this voiceover just sucks the air out of the room every time it comes up. Let me react to things on my own, voiceover!
Always Sunny, “Mac & Dennis Become EMTs” – Very very funny and tweaks The Bear without feeling like it’s going to age, mostly because it relies on the sheer comedy of their pepper-fueled rampages, then escalates the plot until my jaw dropped at the horrors they’ve inflicted, and then I was just laughing.
A pair of King of The Hill’s in prep for the revival. Peggy Hill getting into a pyramid scheme LLM came up just as I’ve been reading Cultish’s section about how LLM’s are explicitly capitalist cults, plus Luanne joining a sorority cult. (The source of the great “Yup, this is it” meme.) The guys trying and failing to shoot/catch the emus is all too understandable – “I can’t shoot! They’re too majestic! Wait, I think I can…no, still too majestic.” “I can’t shoot something that’s tickled me!”
I watched this Sunny last night too and thought it was a hell of a lot of fun. Really excellent at escalating the mayhem and tying it all together at the end.
Los Gringo Hunters
Season 1. First time.
My wife started watching this on Netflix and I jumped in halfway through. This is a procedural based on a suppossedly-real Tijuana police unit that tracks down and arrests U.S. fugitives in México. The show largely alternates cases-of-the-week with an overarching conspiracy involving the assassination of the unit’s leader at the top of the series, which later involves a public vote for a land development, corrupt politicians, narcos and a child abuse ring. It is quite effective if somewhat sensasionalized, with a good ensemble cast for the unit, constant action and plenty of cliffhanger. Still, the main reason I kept watching was the location work, which is pretty good on its own but also gave us the pleasure of seeing a bunch of places we’ve personally been to, in Tijuana and even here in Rosarito: the border, my university, a few beach restaurants we know, city hall, the Toros’ baseball stadium, my old office, etc. And a lot of cool drone establishing shots. Good shot, excellent Tijuana travelogue.
What did we listen to?
I got 15 minutes into the Blank Check on Raising Arizona, with one of my favorite guests, and realized that they were going to spend nearly three hours saying only good things about a movie I didn’t much care for the last time I watched it. I wonder if this will be a longer miniseries than I expected since I blow hot and cold on the Coens. Well, at least there’s Fargo and Lebowski.
De Stijl, The White Stripes
This album fucks. I’ve already listened to it multiple times, and I want to listen to it again right now. It’s possible that I didn’t listen to as many other albums this week because I wanted to just keep listening to De Stijl. “You’re Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl),” “Hello Operator,” “Apple Blossom,” “Death Letter,” “Your Southern Can Is Mine”–I’ve been singing all of these at odd moments off-and-on all week.
Strange Geometry, The Clientele
Cool and laidback, a good space to be in. An album of blues and blacks and purples, with the feel of an incredible night club. I’m going to top last week’s weird comparison of Aesop Rock to Tristan and say that this album felt like the digital cinematography in Collateral. (Except for “Losing Haringey,” which is still good but feels categorically different.)
Bang Bang Rock & Roll, Art Brut
Lively, energetic, bright, and funny. It’s all great, but it’s hard to beat the non-stop fun of the first three songs all coming back-to-back: “Formed a Band,” “My Little Brother,” and “Emily Kane.” The opener is probably the one I keep singing the most.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Fun, unusual indie rock. This feels like it came out of nowhere, just a spontaneous burst of bright-toned rock in a very particular style, and I liked looking it up and discovering from a contemporary Pitchfork review that that was sort of true. No press kit, even!
Screen Drafts, “Mission: Impossible Super Draft,” “Gene Hackman Mini-Mega,” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre Super Draft,” and the first two episodes of The Marathon sideshow
Irate at the results of that Mission: Impossible draft, but the Gene Hackman draft sold me on a couple of unseen films, like Postcards from the Edge. I’d thought that watching all the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films once was enough for me (though I adore the first one and will revisit it many times), but this episode talked about them all with such affection that I may have to do that project all over again.
The Marathon project is very fun–much more like an actual draft, ironically–as the hosts cannibalize old episodes to build competing marathons for imaginary repertory theaters. Having Underwater as the midnight movie in a Kristen Stewart marathon is an A+ choice.
Saw The Clientele live last year and the digital cinematography analogy is something I’d never think of and is also absolutely spot-on for their sound, atmospheric with edges.
Yes, that comparison resonated with someone else! You have no idea how much joy that gives me.
Heh, yeah, this is similar to my thoughts on The Clientele, that’s very much their aura. (And as if to hammer the point home, their album prior to this was called The Violet Hour.)
De Stijl does fuck, but I’m not sure it fucks more than their first or third album (and possibly their fourth or even fifth, depending on your perspective). What I’m saying is you’d probably very much like the rest of their albums as well, and Jack White’s latest release No Name, which sounds a lot like a throwback to the White Stripes days. Worth noting that, at least on their first two albums (I don’t remember offhand the rest), several of the songs are covers of old blues classics, although you probably knew that.
I like the original single or demo or whatever it is version of “Formed a Band” better than the final album version, but the album is still good. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! didn’t do much of note after that debut album, but it is pretty terrific. “In This Home on Ice” is my favorite, but looking back over the track list, there are a lot of worthy contenders.
I loved De Stijl even more than The White Stripes, but that rocked too, obviously (their “St. James Infirmary” was probably my favorite of that album–love these old blues covers). Looking forward to getting to at least one more of their albums further on up the list, from what I remember, and I plan to listen to all of their stuff eventually. And White’s “Archbishop Harold Holmes” is absolutely one of my favorites of 2025 so far.
I’m delighted by that past Violet Hour album title for The Clientele.
Upon further consideration, De Stijl probably does fuck more than The White Stripes, although I think White Blood Cells fucks the most.
(Also, that’s a pretty great list of the best of the album. Maybe I’d add “I’m Bound to Pack It Up” and “Why Can’t You Be Nicer to Me?”)
We Hate Movies covering Sin City and doing Frank Miller impressions was great, I forgot about all the weird gross shit he is clearly into. On the music front, becoming one of those white dudes who obsesses over 90 year old blues recordings but this is clearly an image I can lean into, as long as I don’t become Steve Buscemi in Ghost World. Also listened to Remain In Light a few more times – is this one of the best albums of the 80’s? Eh, rhetorical question. The second half is especially growing on me and any recommends for Fela Kuti would be appreciated. I’M A TUMBLER!
Oh, yeah, I forgot that I listened to the Sin City episode too! That was a fun one. Still laughing about them saying the Yellow Bastard looked like “the Toxic Avenger if he were made entirely of used condoms.”
Re: Fela Kuti – start with Zombie (1977).
Thanks!
And Chris Frantz, in his autobio, Remain in Love, mentions buying Shakara (1971) when he was at RISD.
My buddy was in town for the weekend so I put him onto some of my favorite new music from this year as well as a playlist I’ve been putting together of my favorites from the 2020s so far. (Admittedly, I only really dove back in about three years ago, so there isn’t much from 2021, but more surprisingly, just nothing from 2020. I even tried to look up some best-of lists from that year and didn’t recognize anything from them except “WAP.”)
Of course, the process of making lists (unlike the Clientele, I’m not pretty tired of it, yet) means I’m always trying to keep track of what I really like that’s new, and I think as of right now, that’s coalesced into a top 12 songs, although of course there’s a lot of time for that to still change.
Anyone listen to this new Nation of Language song yet? It scratches my 80s itch in all the best ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjCgSSepzrA
Year of the Month update!
This August, we’ll be covering 1959. Check out all these movies, albums, books, et al
And there’s still time to write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al this month!
TBD: Captain Nath: Separation Sunday
TBD: Captain Nath: The Sunlandic Twins
Jul. 28th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Sin City
I’m intrigued by that list of comparisons, although per your footnote, the bands I’m more familiar with are the ones less and less similar. The description made me think of the Beaches and Beach Bunny, too, but I suspect they also fall under “less similar,” if at all similar.
I ran, not walked, to this one after the list of the comparisons, and several songs in, I’m fairly confident you would have at least a reasonably good time with this.
“Cuffing Season”-era Beach Bunny is a reasonable comp. I almost included them in that list, but her latest album is a lot closer to the pop side of pop-punk, so I’m not sure the shoe fits as well anymore.
Panic Shack isn’t like a White Lung album or anything, but it’s a little harder, gleefully provocative and sophomoric but self-aware in a way that never seemed to be Beach Bunny’s thing.
I like punk, but I also tend to lean more to the pop side.
Interesting note about the self-awareness, because the thing that’s stood out to me (per Lauren’s review of Tunnel Vision last week and my own experience with the singles) is that Lili Trifilio’s lyrics are really focused on a self-aware psychoanalysis.
Maybe the distinction is how it’s applied because I definitely agree that Trifilio’s songs have an inward gaze. To me, she seems to be a super sincere lyricist.
Like a Greta Kline type, more or less thoughtfully working her feelings and observations into songs.
Panic Shack are more into the meta-commentary and irony. There’s still feeling, but humor and irony are a bigger part of the brand. I feel like early Alex Turner is kind of a good comp. They might engage in a trope and comment on it.
That could just be the difference between a group project with backing vocalists who can come in and tag your joke vs. a project centered around a principal songwriter’s worldview.