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Who knew an exclamation point could have so much power?

With that zealous punctuation mark, the members of Panic! at the Disco were the princes of emo, espousing a particular brand of pop-rock treachery that sounded a little too similar to mentors Fall Out Boy, but not enough for rabid teenage fans (all girls, of course) to notice. Without the exclamation point, though - the band chose to drop it in January - Panic at the Disco loses all the kitschiness (well, most of it) that made them the perfect MTV package.

Instead, on sophomore album Pretty. Odd., the band chooses to go the route fellow Las Vegas natives The Killers did on Sam's Town: dropping electronica-tinged instrumentation, going for deeper lyrics and attempting facial hair. But Panic should have ditched the mustaches and kept their Casios - Pretty. Odd. is one ugly mess.

On their debut album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, lead singer Brendon Urie and the rest of the Panic crew went for brief bursts of synthesizers and giving songs ridiculously long titles. But with Pretty. Odd., the band veers in a different direction entirely, a more pop-influenced and melody-driven place.

Unfortunately, it's also a very boring destination - the majority of songs here rely on a slower pace with few frenetic breakdowns like the one heard on "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage" and even less of the sexual lyrics Urie once sang so frequently. Instead, Panic tries to channel classic rock (and more G-rated lyrics) on Pretty. Odd. - Ross told Rolling Stone the album is "influenced by the music our parents listened to: The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Beatles." And yes, that sound is certainly there; it just seems overwhelmingly gimmicky, a pale imitation of bands far greater than Panic.

There's an orchestra-driven instrumentation on "When the Day Met the Night" that harks back to The Beach Boys' days of layered sound, but that doesn't make the song exciting. The boys want to be Paul, John, George and Ringo on "Behind the Sea," a song with a circus-like, lilting melody, but The Beatles they definitely are not. And other random touches, such as Urie's vocals being distorted to sound as if they are being broadcast on an old-time radio on "I Have Friends in Holy Spaces," feel too over-produced for the organic sound Panic wants to achieve.

And that seems to be the big problem here - Panic is trying for something different, but as a band, they don't seem to have the experience needed to make their wannabe-mature sound flourish. Trying to shake off an unwanted reputation - Urie told The New Musical Express in 2006, "Emo is bullshit. We want to be the new Radiohead" - is a delicate task, and doing it with just one album is tricky, indeed.

That said, Pretty. Odd. isn't a complete and total failure. There are some moments that shine brightly, such as the line "Diamonds do appear to be/ Just like broken glass to me" on ballad "Northern Downpour," and compared to the rest of the meanderingly unhurried tracks on the album, single "Nine in the Afternoon" is welcome for its faster tempo. The true standout, though, is "She Had the World," in which Urie and Ross trade singing duties in McCartney/Lennon fashion.

Overall, though, Pretty. Odd. is the sound of a band grasping at a depth of character they haven't really developed yet. Panic may proclaim on opener "We're So Starving" that fans "don't have to worry cuz we're still the same band," but without that exclamation point, things just aren't the same. Shed a tear, emo fans - there's no need to (listen to) Panic.

roxanadbk@gmail.com

RATING: 2.5 STARS OUT OF 5

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