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Continuing their tradition of opening albums with a striking lead track, the titular song in Panda Riot’s new record Extra Cosmic sets the tone for the LP’s complete tracklist, but it deceptively leads us to the belief that we’re in for something much more retro than we actually are. While the first song here reads like a Loveless outtake, “Technicolor” immediately shifts the theme towards hybridity and harmonious indie psychedelia over shoegaze, providing us an uncertain groove that becomes impossible for us to evade by the time we get into the aggressive “E.S.P.,” a fitting chief single for Extra Cosmic. “Telepathic Landscapes” gives us our first intermission, but even in its instrumental luster, we find shades of a narrative only beginning to unfold in the first four songs here.
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“1000%” is a complimenting single to “E.S.P.” for sure, but I wouldn’t say its Pixies-style thrashing is any more alluring than what we’re getting from the bolder, arguably flashier “Glitterati.” There’s a lot of guitar-born grooving in this record, but it never takes away from the monstrosity of melodicism that trickles into the air via everything from a boss bassline in the postmodern “Ultramarine” to the surprisingly angelic harmonies of “Remote Viewing,” the latter of which is undisputedly the most experimental punker you’re going to hear in Extra Cosmic.
There was a lot of thought that went into this, but you can be certain Panda Riot was not stretching themselves too thin with these concepts – they’re molded to what they do best.
While I think the mix of “Echelon” doesn’t do the melodic disposition of the instruments as much justice as it could have in a more pop-oriented construction, it’s still a track that has a lot more punch than you’re expecting coming into its first thirty-five seconds. Where things get really interesting in the second portion of Extra Cosmic is in the multilayered “Future Shock” and “Cmyk,” both of which could have been singles alongside “E.S.P.” and “1000%” thanks to their brutish presence. Indulgence can be this band’s best friend, and they’re reminding us that every chance they get in this tracklist, whether we’re prepared for the intensity of the presentation or simply getting lost in the hypnotic sounds of the music.
Another instrumental concept work in “Royal Blue Skies” gives us an introduction to “Magic Only,” the final track in Extra Cosmic and perhaps the least instrumentally sophisticated of the lot. Although there’s no debating whether or not Panda Riot knows how to use excess like no others in their genre can at the moment – at least in the American underground – they can also get away with black and white arrangements given their immense penchant for making clandestine harmonies hard to ignore, and including this closer was essential to helping us understand and appreciate as much. This isn’t a band that wanted to make Extra Cosmic for the approval of critics like myself alone, but instead out of a need to further spotlight their evolution in the studio, which is reaching a true fever pitch in this LP.
by Jennifer Munoz
