The idea of “perfection” has ruined music. Perfectly triggered drum sounds are lined up with grids on screens. Auto-tuned vocals travel through the perfect chain of plug-in compression and limiting and brightening and whitening. Perfect planks of digital bass tone are flown from section to section and the bridge hits at the moment deemed optimal by the algorithm. The album cover is photoshopped into the perfect marketing tool as dictated by expert analysis of research and data. The finished recording is subjected to maximum-volume mastering in an effort to win the volume wars. The band and cover photo get photoshopped into such bland perfection that no observer will ever feel compelled to stare for hours into its depth looking for stories. There are no stories to be found in there. The finished product is just that, a product, one from which all the humanity has been drained and replaced with a black hole of perfect nothingness and just kill me already.

CLIFFFS don’t give a fuck about perfect.
Which is probably why, for their sophomore effort PANIC ATTACK, they went and made a perfect record.
Under-the-radar greatness is nothing new for CLIFFFS frontman/mastermind John Dufilho. He’s done it with [The] Deathray Davies. He’s done it with Cantina. He’s done it as producer and player on scores of albums by other artists, my own included. Something about this CLIFFFS project is different though.

The lineup is smaller, for one thing. John’s joined only by a tight, simple rhythm section comprised of Andy Lester (bass, vocals), and Bill Spellman (drums, vocals), and perhaps this is an intentional counterintuitive strategy – less is more. It works. In PANIC ATTACK’S 13 tracks, there’s more breathing room than in any previous Dufilho project. And the result is somehow messier. And bigger. Giant even. Perfect. — Rhett Miller