The Panic Brothers
Album: The Panic Brothers
Label: Panic
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.facebook.com/ThePanicBrothers

Formed in 1985, The Panic Brothers was the acoustic scene debut of Reg Meuross, joining forced with comedian Richard Morton. They stayed together for five years and released one album, In The Red, before Reg moved on to form The Flamingos with Martin Belmont, Bob Loeday and Alison Jones from The Barely Works as well as touring with Hank Wangford as part of the Lost Cowboys, a gig that lasted up until 2009. Reg launched his solo career in 1996 and hasn’t looked back since, releasing eight albums and earning himself the title of Fatea’s Best Male Vocalist in 2013.

Now, 25 years after they called it a day, Meuross and Morton have got back together. To which end, you might, as did I, assume this was a reunion album of new material. You’d be wrong. It’s actually a reissue of their 1987, Clive Gregson produced debut that originally appeared on Topic. However, given that it’s been long out of print, there’s no complaints about it resurfacing now, especially as, given the rock n roll roots on which it drew, it remains moth timeless and .timely retro. As is clear from the old photo on the front, although the songs, all bar two of which were penned by Morton, had a playful, witty bent, they pretty much modeled themselves on the Everlys, something immediately apparent on listening to No News, while, despite its Dragnet theme styled twangy guitar riff, rock driving opener Bivouac surely owes a debt to the Claudette while the equally urgent In Debt inclines slightly more to Temptation.

It’s not just the Evs, you’ll also hear Buddy Holly on the Meuross-penned Later Than You Think while I’m Broke In Everything But My Heart marries Elvis’s Good Luck Charm with some Jerry Lee Lewis honky tonk piano (courtesy Geraint Watkins), The Late Night Picture Show is a teen ballad in the mode of Frankie Avalon or Johnny Tillotson.

Elsewhere, the galloping Repo Man is an sort of materialistic version of Sinner Man with fiery fiddle work from Ed Korolyk and the obviously country styled Almost As Blue As Hank Williams features a Johnny Cash twanging guitar alongside its pedal steel. What struck me most though was how much the skifflebilly I Made A Mess Of A Dirty Weekend sounded like Terry & Gerry who were doing the rounds in the same year that the Panics came together and have themselves recently reunited. Indeed, on both that and Meuross’s closing, beguilingly lovely I’ve Forgotten What It Is That I Was Drinking To Forget (which features Gregson on guitar and keyboards), Morton shares a very similar vocal timbre to Gerry Colvin.

The reissue also comes with two bonus tracks, Hired Hand and Billy Ray, a couple of very rough (you can barely hear the guitars on the former) live May 1986 recordings from the Royal Albert in Deptford. The guys have been back out playing shows (albeit mostly down south), so maybe a proper new album (and they had a lot of songs they never got round to recording) could also be on the cards.

Mike Davies