There's a certain kind of person out there who'll always be goth -- even while wearing a sweater set and pearls and driving her kids to soccer practice in an SUV. The effect is much the same with Ro-Robot; even with its tasteful white-and-bright blue color scheme, Panorama is more goth than most scowling folks in stompy black boots and heavy eyeliner can ever hope to be. It's dark and textured, though not comically so, a bit '80s-retro sounding and a little spooky. Not the "Oooooh, I'm the dark lord of darkness!" kind of spooky; for all its pop leanings, Panorama is just a little off somehow, and that makes it more unsettling than all but the most committedly creepy gloom rock.

A good deal of that unearthliness is provided by Ro-Robot's vocals: a young man (I'm assuming) with a bit of a lisp croons lyrics in fractured English; it sounds like he's reading them for the very first time, and they're written out phonetically in nice, big type, but he still sounds like he means every word. Why is that disturbing? None of the members of Ro-Robot list their names in Panorama's liner notes, or on the album's press release, or even on their website. I can only assume that they are, in fact, a "they" and not a "he", or even an "it". The individuals making this music have submerged their identities in the all-encompassing gestalt of Ro-Robot; this band might not even be human after all! (Human League reference completely unintended.)

But of course, that can't be true. Ro-Robot is probably just a handful of earnest, skinny Dutch boys fascinated with cold-sounding synths and warm, buzzing electric guitars, writing songs about the tension of modern life and singing in their best schoolboy English. I'm willing to bet they've never even worn eyeliner in their lives. Even so, it's obvious that at heart, they're the dead-whitest black-bondage-pants-wearin' darkwave kids you'd ever hope to mope with.