Well, this is certainly something: Kick, the sixth album from Chile’s Panico is an energetic, punky record. From the grinding intro of opener “Illumination” through to the dying moments of “Distant Shore”, this album is one that will pick you up, throw you around and drop you onto the floor. And then it’ll give you a kiss, because it’s lovely.

Recorded at Franz Ferdinand’s studio in Glasgow, Kick is a funky, powerful record. Tracks such as “Guadalupe” and “Reverberation Mambo” are loud and insistent; and there’s a hint of the anarchic and subversive underneath “Waka Chiki” and “Uptown Boy”. The opening of “Guadalupe” (well, and the track as a whole) has to be one of the most arresting pieces of music I’ve heard all year.Yet while the arresting nature of the record is persistent, final track “Distant Shore” dispenses with the overt mania to pick up the underlying intricacy of Panico’s music and reflects a more thoughtful perspective.

The songs in this collection have a demotic, carnivalesque quality that grinds out from underneath the tropical and adreneline-fuelled music, and which captures and holds you. Clattering drums, spiky guitars, driving basslines, and the calls and shouts that build up waves to be released in each song. Kick is an accurately titled record.

The band are also (and excitingly) set to release a documentary in 2011 (with James Schneider) in which they visit “ghost towns” in Northern Chile. Ghost towns are ace.

MP3: Panico, “Icon”

Kick is released on 11th October on Chemikal Underground.