Panic Stations (album)

Background

Following the recording of Go (2012), the band set out on the "4 Albums. 2 Nights. 7 Cities" tour, which found the band performing the group's past discography over two nights. During that time period, the group searched for the label to release Go, which was being mixed at the time. The band took meetings with various label heads, but eventually returned to Epitaph Records at the behest of label founder Brett Gurewitz. Go received mixed reviews from contemporary music critics, and it charted much lower than the group's prior releases at number 45 on the Billboard 200. Drummer Tony Thaxton departed the group in March 2013 following battles with tour-related depression. The band enlisted longtime friend Claudio Rivera of Saves the Day as the group's new drummer, and released a one-off single with him, "Inside Out", in celebration.

The band embarked on a tour celebrating the tenth anniversary of Commit This to Memory between January and February 2015, playing the album in its entirety. The group later extended this anniversary tour, and further toured the album between June and August 2015.

Recording and production

The group recorded Panic Stations over two weeks at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota in June 2014. Pachyderm, a studio best known for recording artists such as PJ Harvey, Superchunk, and, most famously, Nirvana's In Utero (1993), was in a state of disrepair for many years. John Kuker purchased it out of foreclosure in 2011, and he and engineer Nick Tveitbakk remodeled the home over three years. Motion City Soundtrack was one of the first bands to record in the newly revamped Pachyderm. Pierre considered it a "magical" place to record, due to its associations with Nirvana. Additional production was contributed by engineer and record producer Mike Sapone.

For the album, the group collaborated with producer John Agnello, well known for his work with Dinosaur Jr., Walt Mink, and Sonic Youth. For the band's previous few records, the band's songwriting methods involved sending audio files back and forth to one another. Panic Stations was an attempt to break away from that method by writing songs together rather than apart. The band was engulfed in writing for the album in the second half of 2013, and were nearly set to record that October before there was an undisclosed setback. The band entered the studio with dozens of song ideas, "maybe 50 in total," according to Pierre. Agnello advised the band to track the entire album live, a request that the band members had received from friends for many years. The process was designed to capture the energy of the group's live performances; as a result, the group was less critical of musical mistakes in recording in the interest of just having fun. The five members and Agnello lived together while creating the record at Pachyderm.

Pierre spoke on the "back-to-basics" approach of creating Panic Stations:

When we were all younger it was like we just wrote and made music. We would get together in the practice space and just start playing. Somebody would start and everyone else would join in. And we started overthinking everything slowly over time. This was about trying to forget everything we'd learned and going back to the fresh, new feeling. Once the music is written and recorded, you can get back to the other, more complicated aspects of being in a band.

The band came to the studio well-rehearsed and often recorded songs in one take. The recording process was completed in 14 days, marking the shortest time the group had spent recording an album.

Reception

Upon its release, Panic Stations received positive reviews from music critics. On Metacritic, the album achieved an average score of 80 out of 100 based on five reviews, signifying "generally favorable reviews".

Colin McGuire of PopMatters characterized the music as a "burst of energy," noting that "There’s an assurance here that hasn’t been present on the band’s previous sets, and at the end of the day, it has provided an essential layer to a rock formula that needed forward movement in order to survive in the first place." Jonathan Diener of Alternative Press deemed it their "most straightforward release," commenting, "Although the lovable weirdness seems absent this time around, fans will be in for a solid and consistent rock album from start to finish." Rod Yates, of the Australian edition of Rolling Stone, felt it "one of the best records of their career." The Daily Breeze's Sam Gnerre was effusive, describing the record as "11 slices of brilliant, fully realized bursts of unstoppable energy" that "sounds fresher in sound and spirit than any of the band’s prior albums."

Track listing

All tracks written by Motion City Soundtrack.

Personnel

Motion City Soundtrack

Production