Palace
Chase The Light
June 8 2015 (Beatnik Creative/Fiction)
8.5/10
Words: Linn Branson
Do second EPs prove as difficult to come up with as do the notorious album follow-ups? Well, if so, it certainly doesn't seem to have presented much of a problem here for Palace.
This new five-track release from the alt-blues/pop quartet follows on from last year's 'Lost In The Night' debut, and already set its stall out in the form of lead single, the big reverb-rich ballad 'Kiloran'. Just below give minutes that meanders like a smooth-flowing stream, rippling here and there with seductive blues guitar slides via Rupert Turner, and enough little drum kicks to keep it nicely afloat.
'Head Above The Water', the opening track and perhaps the highlight, bows in with a strident opening before Leo Wyndham's vocals hit in to mollify the track, lending easy appeasement over the bittersweet riffy grooves. And check that inflection on the 't' in 'wa-t-er' - so reminiscent of the same in their previous glory track 'Bitter'. (You just want to bottle that man's 't's!)
'Settle Down' is the slow tempo woozy midpoint that leaves Wyndham's vocal ("Devotion to our blood/An ocean my feelings flood/Isabel, you know me well/I've given hell/But we shall dwell beyond the knell/our time will tell.”) to take precedence against the lightest of beats from Matt Hodges and guitar accompaniment, with the last minute given over largely to the latter. And who might this Isabel be, aren't we all dying to know, as he sings of her: "you’re my hurricane/ I wanna be something/you’re my oxygen.”
'Tomahawk' fans will be familiar with this from their live set, with vocal harmonies and some particularly intricate guitar work from Leo; while closing title track 'Chase The Light' is a much simpler, stripped back track in structure from the EP's start (and shorter, at just two-and-a-half minutes in length), that begins with Leo's first line: "I'm afraid of the dark"...which will no doubt be enough to get a few hundred females offering comfort.
Right from early last July when we first had Palace on our radar with 'Veins', they have always sounded a class above most of their contemporaries. How they will surpass what they have put out so far when it comes to a full-length album remains to be seen, and heard.
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