Dance Gavin Dance - Pantheon (September 12, 2025) • Page 5

per Jon Mess' wife, the band might pursue legal action against the leaker if they are able to

 

Gave it a listen and it's DGD on autopilot, except with much less distinctive clean vocals this time. Andrew's performance actually reminds me a lot of Jonny on DBM2, in how he mostly gets drowned out by the rest of the band. He occasionally stumbles upon a memorable melody, but I find him so unremarkable for the most part.

Post-hardcore vocalists with strong R&B and pop influences used to be a novelty but there are TONS of them in the scene these days, and ironically especially among "swancore" (eurgh) bands that grew up with DGD's early albums, so he really doesn't stand out here.

I also fail to hear anything new, and tuning the guitars down to Drop B or ramping up the quirkiness with some (annoying) vocal parts at times aren't enough on that front to help me change my mind. That said, the increased heaviness in the last third (A Shoulder to Cry On onwards), with some riffing that borders on metalcore, is welcome. It's a shame they pretty much always revert back to their old tricks on the parts that follow though.

Guess I'm going back to pretending they called it a day four or five albums ago. The Tilian debacle should've ultimately made them self-implode.

 

I've had my gripes with their post-Mothership output due to how stale they had gotten, and it's even more apparent now that they decided to stay with a clean vocalist that doesn't give anything other than... bland.

Kurt, Jonny and Tilian all stood out in their own ways, and for better or worse with the latter two, whereas Andrew just seems there, sounding like everyone else in their niche. I don't remember much of Eidola, so I don't know if it's a DGD problem in particular or if he usually doesn't write catchy melodies regardless.

Then you have the same bag of tricks in the song structures, guitar riffs and attempts at quirkiness + the exact same production as the past X albums and that's what comes out of all that.

 

Was looking up their album runtimes and I feel like they stopped trimming the fat at some point in their career. Most of their best work consisted of tight, concise, consistent albums, especially in their earlier days. S/T and Mothership are exceptions to the rule, though both featured enough variety in the songwriting to justify the extended length.

Not anymore. I'm not sure this one needed to be almost an hour long. At least it doesn't get as bad as Jackpot Juicer, which felt like it never ended.

 

Martin Bianchini (Secret Band, Emberthrone) was involved with writing/guitar playing on the last 3 songs, so that’s where a lot of the heaviness is coming from on those.

 

I'm probably not bothering with a leak, too much new stuff to listen to, but I did listen to the newest single, Trap Door, and it really sounds like Jonny has a part in the bridge. Is that the one he was rumored to be on?

 

It’s Andrew, Jonny isn’t on the album

 

Jonny was rumored for “The Robot with Human Hair: Rebirth” but he isn’t on the album at all.

 

After listening to the whole thing, I would say the singles are some of the weaker songs. There’s some cool shit on here. I’m glad Mess is mixing it up a bit, even if some of his swings are total misses.

the lyrics are real bad though. Multiple references of people virtue signaling/moralizing and shit. Seems like they took offense to people calling them out for welcoming back multiple sexual predators multiple times, touring with Escape the Fate and shit.

also they’re still doing that vocal layering effect with autotune/some other smoothing effect. I thought that was just cause Tillian sucks at singing, but it sounds bad.

 

I think Andrew spent too much time with Tilian, because some of his early Eidola stuff is fine, but the last two are ... oof on the lyrical front.

 

I exchanged messages with Jonny about it last month

 

is this latest single the one that they held back a while due to negative fan reaction? I think it's good, can't see why fans would dislike it - admittedly I found All The Way Down slightly better (but M@M a bit of a dud tbh), but all signs so far point to Andrew being a great fit for the band.

I had not wanted to listen to them much any longer after their poor handling of the Tilian situation, but to hold my hands up I have not been able to hold myself to that. I basically like everything Will Swan does on guitar and he has once again hooked me with these 2 latest single (plus that Straight from the Heart one, some of the riffs in that are so good)

 

iirc, it was going to be Conquerer Worm but that tested bad so they pivoted to this one

 

“A Shoulder to Cry On” was the scrapped single.

 

thus far, A Shoulder To Cry On has the least number of streams on the leak that's online, so maybe it was a good idea to scrap it as a single

it's a good song though

The Conqueror Worm has the 2nd most streams, so maybe it would have worked well as a single

my personal favorite on the album is The Peak Of Superstition

 

so I did not remember correctly… alas another L I will have to hold. I definitely think Trap Door is a better single, but honestly don’t know why Shoulder to Cry On would’ve been poorly received.

 

It might be the least catchy song on the album. Why else would it have the least number of streams thus far?

 

Probably gonna hold off on the leaks.....although damn tempting to seek it out. Andrew is not my favorite vocalist at all (Tillian is) but the clean vox are only *one* part of the band. The first two singles were boring imo but Trap Door was actually good. Did I see someone say Will does some vocals somewhere on the album?? If so that'll be neat, at least I can look forward to hearing him and Jon.

 

I definitely think Trap Door was the right move as a single, the "coming up nothing but aces" bit is insanely catchy. Shoulder has some really nice textures though and breaks some new ground for them, really strong album track. Jon busting out the cleans is such a nice surprise

 

Worm and the song with the george clinton feature went from the two most “what the hell am I listening to?” songs on the album to two of my favorites very fast, lol

 

He does, there also a couple parts where I wasn't able to tell who was singing. I didn't check the tracklisting so that may have been a feature or two

 

George Clinton is the only feature. The rest is all Andrew, Jon, and Will. They change up their styles quite a bit throughout the album.

 

Interesting, very interesting. Looking forward to hearing the different goal styles between the three of them.

 

I'm late to this band, but been getting into them lately. Really seem to enjoy some of the Titian stuff that I've checked out, and enjoyed jackpot juicer. Main thing that has me hooked is this guitar player. Some of these riffs are really amazing.

Serious question, the guy screaming, are these lyrics suppose to make sense ??

 

Jon’s thing has always been writing kind of bonkers nonsense lyrics. Was my biggest barrier to entry with the band because generally lyrics are my favorite part of songs. I eventually got used to it, and I think that helped me expand outside of “serious” music a little bit which has been a huge plus for me personally. Sometimes fun music is fun, and there’s a lot of ways to learn that, but for me it was specifically Jon screaming pop hooks on Summertime Gladness with a saxophone going crazy in the background.