With Pantheon, Dance Gavin Dance returns from a three-year hiatus with a release that sounds a little different from 2022’s Jackpot Juicer. Out on September 12, 2025, through Rise Records, this album is a sonic world built from grief, reinvention, and the band’s signature genre-defying bravado. It marks the first full-length release since the passing of Bassist Tim Feerick and the departure of longtime Clean Vocalist Tilian Pearson, ushering in a new era led by Andrew Wells (who was formerly rhythm guitarist, but is now the frontman). What does this change mean for the band’s overall sound and demeanor? Nothing but green flags.
Andrew Wells steps into the spotlight with a vocal performance that’s both reverent and radical. His clean vocals bring a soulful, theatrical edge that complements Jon Mess’s feral screams. Here, the music sounds a little closer to the emotional and alternative Panic! At The Disco than the Screamo Rock/Metal chaos their last releases are known for. For starters, the vocal chemistry between Mess and Wells is very alluring, feeling less like a tug-of-war and more like a synchronized onslaught. They work well to counteract each other and stack their voices.
The sound production chose to place Wells in the forefront, giving Mess’s wicked voice a ghostlike echo quality as it slinks through the background of each song before being fully unveiled for solo moments and emotional turnpikes in each song. Tracks like “Midnight at McGuffy’s” with its intense intro and rapid staccato lyrics showcase the possibilities of this dynamic well. Another is “The Peak of Superstition,” which showcases this sound with dizzying precision.
Dance Gavin Dance has always been a band of experimental extremes, ebbing between the avenues of as many genres as they can juggle, and Pantheon doubles down on this creative paradigm. The opener “Animal Surgery” kicks in like a wrecking ball made of glitter and gravel. At the same time, “Space Cow Initiation Ritual,” the best of the pre-release tracks, is pure absurdist funk swagger that could be on its own entirely different album. While listening to the album in its entirety, expect math rock breakdowns, jazzy interludes, emo lyrics and screams, always energetic drums, and snazzy Pop hooks—all culminating in the much heavier and chaotic ending, “Descend to Chaos.” This ultimate song is a bow on the gift of the album, exploding with energy that is equal parts chaotic, theatrical, and technical.
True to form, the lyrics are cryptic, surreal, and emotionally fragmented. References to past albums like “The Robot with Human Hair (Rebirth)” suggest a meta-commentary on the band’s legacy. There is a sense of both homage and evolution, as if the band is simultaneously mourning and mythologizing their own history. Death, and the chaos that surrounds it, is an integral part of deciphering the meaning behind the album. Still, the band does not lean too far into this aesthetic, opting instead to use musical expression as a form of grief rather than lyrical storytelling.
You can feel the grief in “Shoulder to Cry On” not because of the words, but the way its lamenting drums and bassline stand out in comparison to the rest of the album’s songs. The intense, gravelly whining does well in selling the emotion, too, but it is clear that Dance Gavin Dance is using the music itself as creative expression, not just a background for their new lead man’s poetry.
In the end, Pantheon is a stunning new release that is hard to categorize and label, which is precisely what is intended. It is Dance Gavin Dance at their most vulnerable and most audacious, channeling loss into legacy. For fans, it is a triumphant return. For newcomers, it is a wild initiation. That is why Cryptic Rock gives Pantheon 5 out of 5 stars.
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