Change

- The Young Veins

So I just found out (here) that Panic at the Disco is splitting - I believe it's actually fairly old news (July 6th-ish). It is interesting though because when you consider how different "Pretty. Odd." was to "A fever you can't sweat out", it was fairly obvious that there were some serious creative forces at work. And apparently that's the reason for the split: Having evolved in different directions.

Well, the splinter group not calling themselves PATD are called The Young Veins, consisting of Ryan Ross and John Walker. I can't claim to know the band's history that well but I liked them from the start, and in my simple take on it Ryan and John are the Beetle-inspired duo who showed their hand quite strongly in Pretty. Odd. You can hear their debut track on their Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/theyoungveins

Now I'm not calling this track ("Change") a new instant classic, but I do think both bands will be well worth keeping an eye on, and in fact the split may be exactly what both of them needed.

Walking on a dream

- By Empire of the sun

Knew I liked it the very first time I heard it on the radio earlier this week. Finally downloaded it, and it's as cool as I thought. A strange mix of modern groovy dance, cheesy 80's keyboard and The Bee Gees (?). At first I thought the lead singer had a slight British accent, which made it even more original sounding, but having looked up Empire of the Sun, I see they're Australian... I know!

Anyway, a cool song. I wonder whether it will actually get much radio play. I know I was surprised to hear it on prime-time radio, but if it does, I'm sure we'll all be sick of it soon enough.

I can recommend the rest of the album, too. There are wiffs of The Scissor Sisters, with similar high-pitched vocals and chorusses, but it has a really interesting atmosphere to it (pyschedelic is how the Wikipedia entry describes it).