Johnny Panic

"The Good Fight" (Album, 2007)

More safe rock (but no roll) from the Cambridge four-piece on this, their thirteen song debut. Judging an album by its cover, this serves up precisely what you might expect. Song titles like Heroes of Villains, The Rebel, and The Third Degree are just the sort of thing that countless youths have turned out in every decade since the 70's. It doesn't get any fresher to these ears and, apart from some perfectly fine personal expression and being part of the growing up process that being in a band is for millions of kids year in, year out, there just isn't any point to too much of this stuff. By 'this stuff' I'm not especially singling-out Johnny Panic, but they do represent everything that is completely unexciting about music that flatters classic acts by being inspired by them but will never come close to imitating them. The Clash were a good band but I'm getting seriously exasperated of seeing every new guitar band say what a huge influence they've been on them only to turn out more mundane music. I've no desire to rain on their parade but you can shoot me for wasting valuable time if you catch me listening to Johnny Panic again. 5/10

Rob Dyer (May, 2008 )

"Dislocation" (Single, 2007)

Repeat Records

Ignore the misleading sleeve artwork which suggests something edgy, this apparently takes inspiration from The Clash, Guns n Roses (that's hopefully the last time you'll read those words on this website) and the early American punk scene. It comes as something of a surprise then to hear as much Busted in this as The Ramones. In addition to the title track is the similarly veined Time I Got Up Off My Knees. Comes with a Quicktime video of the promo for Dislocation. I guess this was sent over for review as it comes courtesy of Repeat - home to the Autons whose debut recently earned a DSO Recommended rating on this site. This, on the other hand, is not bad per se (it's competent if never original), just of no real interest to a site like this. 5/10

Rob Dyer (May, 2008)

Official website: http://www.johnnypanic.com