Me? I do things when I feel like it. If I don’t wanna take out the trash, I’m not gonna. If I don’t wanna pay bills, I’ll stiff the collectors and wait for my stuff to get repossessed. If I don’t have the energy to make real food, I’ll slap two pieces of bologna on Wonderbread, glurp on a li’l mayo, and call it good.
Panther, nee Charlie Salas-Humara and Joe Kelly, operate on a similar plane. They’ll rock, but only when they wants to, when they deign it necessary -- and if you want a little more bangin’ for your buck, tough shit. If this wasn’t abundantly clear in the past, when principle member Salas-Humara was part of enigmatic prog-wizards The Planet The – a group that shifted so fiercely from debut Physical Angel to You Absorb My Vision that you’d think they were released by two different bands – it’s clear as crystal now. As he breakdances for the YouTube hoards and leap-frogs from genre to genre, Salas-Humara is becoming the king of the bait-and-switch. You’ll enjoy his musical mazes, but you won’t always find a chunk o’ cheese waiting at the end.
14 Kt God is such a joy when it fully wraps its girth around the songs it houses. “Her Past Are the Trees” plops down a portly beat and never relents, working hard then cashing in on its rhythm for a payday that’ll make you think twice about putting in your two-listens notice. “These Two Trees” rides a cymbal bell into the sunset and will provide a happy ending for any lover’s tale, if that tale happens to be told by the fluorescent squiggles of a laser-light show. “Glamorous War” starts with a groan but ends with a lovely drawn-out yodel you’ll be telling your parachute-pants-wearing flipside hipster friends about, and “Total Sexy Church” is a nice continuation, nay, consolidation of the triad mentioned above, rallying around more perpetual rhythms (which continue in your head even after the track ceases) and strings as it slinks off in no particular direction.
Panther’s victories only make its defeats more defeating. Faux-funk pervades, sinking tracks like “What You Hear,” “Worn Moments,” and “Beautiful Condo” before they slip on their water wings, and “On the Lam” sounds so much like one of those Beastie Boys instrumental interludes you’ll be waiting for a “yes y’all” to pop up from the debris like a soda-bubble. Other attempts at funk with more spunk in the trunk fall less flat, but still fail to stick their landing. Compared to the highlights of 14 Kt God, these tracks are distinctly silver, garnering sloppy seconds with a less diligent work ethic, second-rate grooves, and musicianship that could occasionally benefit from an additional take or two.
To paraphrase and butcher a statement once made by Paul Rudd: Panther’s music works 40% of the time, every time. Based on the talent Salas-Humara has dangled in front of us in the past, the odds should be much, much better.
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