Million Dollar Mouth ~ The panicKING (album review) ... No panicking allowed!

Style: hard rock, alt rock
Label: Atonal Records
Year: 2010
Home: Los Angeles, California

Members: Mike Biscotti ~ vocals
Mary S. ~ keyboards/b. vocals
Vanja Andrin ~ guitars
80 ~ bass
Kris Keane ~ drums

My first thought hearing this band was the Killers but with a lot more punk, albeit a wall of sound like the Stone Temple Pilots but the same indie pop & sexual attitude of both of them. I'll confess that when MDM came recommended to me I knew after a brief listen they didn't have the hard rock edge that I typically listen for in potential reviews, let alone I don't listen to a lot of the alt rock that seems to have become a majority of bands today ... to the joy of teenage girls everywhere. But, listening to a smattering of tunes from The PanicKING by MDM I enjoyed their music so much that, try as might to ignore them & write them off as not workable for this blog's range, I kept listening to their songs again & again. They may not be the hard rock I gravitate to, but they have an interesting sound which is the other requirement of this blog. I often talk to friends about will happen when the 80's icons, like U2, are gone. Who will pick up the pen & compose the next "With Or Without You", let alone create a musical sound based on something more than a handful of sloppy chords & a heart attack in three notes, plus provide a listening alternative to the transparent dance beats that crawl up the music charts with playful abandon only to be abandoned months later? A band like MDM demonstrates that there are bands out there still trying to create something emotional, lyrically interesting & with a dynamic musical wall of unpredictable nuances, let alone a collection of songs that don't all sound alike. MDM have a wave like experimental sound that reminds me of something between Live & the Killers, but without the musical excess of either, with heart-felt lyrics crooned out by tenor Mike Biscotti, with the occasional wah-wah distorted guitar solo thrown in over odd changes that could come from a Bowie album or an instrumental context might be mistaken for a Skid Row tune. I could easily see this band performing on MTV. They fit perfectly as one of the current saviors of popular music.