Sasha_Zhuk все записи автора Making their second CD at famed Abbey Road Studios was a gas for Las Vegas band

When Las Vegas newcomers Panic At The Disco broke through with their commercially successful debut A Fever You Can't Sweat Out in 2005, the wordy song titles and theatrical videos were at times despised by critics but adored by fans.

However, after taking their time making their recently released second album Pretty.Odd., the new material might leave both friends and foes a tad confused.

"We'd been playing those songs for a year and a half so all you want to do is play something different," drummer Spencer Smith says through a few early afternoon yawns. "We were coming off the road from our first album and we just wanted to write songs that were as far away from the first album as possible."

And if that was the goal, then mission accomplished. Panic At The Disco, headlining the Honda Civic Tour hitting Toronto's sold-out Sound Academy tomorrow night, sound nothing like the bratty, sarcastic "emo" outfit of 2005 and 2006. Instead the group comes off more like a clone of The Beatles circa Sgt. Pepper or classic Moody Blues with several songs complete with strings and horns.

After scrapping some early ideas, Smith says writing the first song Nine In the Afternoon (also the first single) set the tone for the other efforts.

"Nine In the Afternoon is generally about us being in the band and being excited about writing new material and also trying to have as much fun as possible," he says. "So much happened in those couple of years, so many different things that we never expected, it was almost like a dream come true. So it would be weird for us to be writing songs at how mad we were at some girl or something."

More Beatles-que comparisons are readily apparent also, including the fact the band recorded the string parts and mixed Pretty.Odd. at London's famed Abbey Road Studios. But Smith says they worked hard not to saturate songs in an orchestral manner.

"We knew that we really wanted to be conscious of not going overboard and making sure the orchestrations served their purpose and made the song better," he says. "When you add it to every song it's not really special anymore when you hear it. And there were certain songs on it that were just rock 'n' roll songs that we didn't want to add anything.

"They've got so much of the old gear there like old pianos from the '60s and '70s but at the same time it was great to be doing work and working on our own material there. It would be amazing to go back and do some full song recordings there. It's something we would love to do."

Yet despite trying to keep some songs simple enough to reproduce in concert, Smith says there's a few that currently aren't attempted on stage.

"There's definitely a couple of songs where we're realizing if we're going to play them live they'll have to be a slightly different version," he says. "But it's kind of cool that way. We're able to change it up a little bit. Ideally it would be amazing to play with a couple of string players and a couple of horn players every night -- but that's not always a possibility."

Smith says the band, which also features singer Brendon Urie, guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker, hope to work faster between records next time and have been gathering ideas on tour for the next record.

Panic At The Disco might also toss out a pretty odd cover during its Canadian shows: The Band's signature song The Weight.

"I think we learned that song about nine months ago," he says. "We knew we wanted to do a new cover song and for whatever reason we just watched The Last Waltz and wanted to cover that song. We love playing that song."

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A few months before Pretty.Odd. was set to come out, drummer Spencer Smith and his band mates caused a stir by changing their name from Panic! At The Disco to Panic At The Disco.

Smith was amazed at the reaction a lone exclamation point's removal could garner.

"I mean I guess it was a little surprising taking something out of the name," he says. "But we never really thought it was part of the name, it was just something that caught online and the way people would spell it out.

"It wasn't really a big decision. We were on the phone and just decided we shouldn't use the exclamation point. The only thing is we got asked about it for about a month (afterwards). Maybe next record we'll add a question mark."

What isn't in question is Smith's enthusiasm about the record. Of the 15 songs off the new album, Smith says he is quite happy with how Northern Downpour turned out.

"It's probably the slowest tempo song that we've ever written," he says. "To the average person that would be the most standout song to add strings to, this epic ballad. But that was the thing we tried to stray away from. We never want to take our songs into that cheesy side of things. For that song we tried to keep it as bare as possible. It was about finding a good balance I think."