Planet Panic

Planet Panic, released by Massacre Records on April 15, 2002, is the tenth studio album and the last of the label period that began in 1994. At ten songs it is a lean record by the standards of these years. The opening run — "Virtual Brutality" into "Playing God" and "He Who Never Lived" — is as direct as those titles suggest, and all three were later re-recorded for Louder Than Ever in 2014. That the band went back to this album more than any other from the period is worth noting when judging it. "One Way to Rock" and "Enter Forevermore" close it out. In September of the same year the band's management company, Rock On, went bankrupt, leaving serious financial and legal problems behind it. In 2003 Ken Hammer had a heart attack, from which he recovered fully. Four and a half years passed before the next studio album, and this record sits immediately in front of that gap.