Local Reviews: Declaration

Declaration
Panic Button
Muse Music Records
Street: 12.01.06
Declaration = Built To Spill + Ladybug Transistor
Declaration vacillates from Ben Folds Five piano-ballad quietude (“Half Inch Man”) to humdrum restless lethargy (“Headlines”) all while maintaining a melodically mellow, simple-yet-engaging tone. Perhaps the best compliment for Panic Button is that you will fast find yourself singing along to most of the album’s catchy refrains, naturally grafted onto the album’s crescendo-crashing guitar riffs and cymbal-heavy drum displays. Declaration is a good old guitar-and-piano band, decidedly less “in your face” than their list of unsurprising influences (Modest Mouse, Fugazi, Built To Spill, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, and the category-defying Death Cab for Cutie and Sunny Day Real Estate).