Panic & the Rebel Emergency play the Mod Club Friday (October 28). Rating: NNNN
One of the most amazing parts of this album is the fact that Panic & the Rebel Emergency are 70 per cent a roots reggae band, but one of the vocalists sounds like he should be in Maroon 5. So you’ve got one dude doing this rough yard flow, and then his Maroon 5ish bandmate comes in belting a perfect little soul part, not pretending to sound Jamaican at all, and it complements everything so pleasingly. That’s probably because the reggae foundation of this album — produced in part by Commissioner Gordon, who worked on The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill — sounds authentic and merges seamlessly with the more pop-oriented guitar arrangements and subject matter.
