Palace thrive on exquisite songwriting recorded in a clear, empathetic manner.
It’s a simple mixture on the surface, but when you dive beneath you’ll uncover vast emotional complexities, and a rare depth of feeling.
New album ‘Shoals’ continues the band’s journey, and – in our mind – it could be their finest moment yet.
Set to close their celebratory UK tour with a show at London’s Brixton Academy this Friday (February 11th), Palace then set their sights on a run of North American dates.
Clash caught up with the band to talk about the influences behind their bold new album.
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Kevin Morby – ‘OMG Rock And Roll’ (Picked by Rupert)
I am such a fan of Kevin Morby and the whole album is fantastic but I kept coming back to this song . It just sets a scene and such a vibe so quickly. It is very Velvet Underground in its style, which is never a bad thing in my book. The sounds are quite harsh but everything sits together so nicely and the way it just falls off the edge into this beautiful choral outro is really out there.
From the frantic build up this song has a relentless energy that drives and drives, with a great staccato melody until it gets to the edge of the cliff but instead of falling it flies with these beautiful harmonies, I think it is that sudden left turn is what really appeals to me if you heard the two parts separately you could be forgiven for not thinking they are the same song it is almost an anti outro and a very interesting approach to songwriting.
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Mount Kimbie – ‘Blue Train Lines’ (Picked by Leo)
This has always been a song we’ve been obsessed with. The album ‘Love What Survives’ by Mount Kimbie was one that we referenced a lot in the making of our album. There’s something so driving and intense particularly about this song. The dry real drum sound combined with King Krule’s almost punky vocal has an energy that we wanted to embody on our record.
The song almost feels like a sort of out of control car that’s going to crash at any moment – it keeps you hooked in with the glitchiness and uneasiness of it. I think creating sounds and elements that felt awkward and unnerving was an exciting idea to us – thinks that’s sort of stick out in an unexpected way – and I think we managed to implement that throughout the album in subtle ways.
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Big Thief – ‘Masterpiece’ (Picked by Leo)
Big Thief are one of our favourite bands at the moment. They’re effortlessly talented and they’re certainly a band we look up to. I think we could’ve picked one of many songs by them. But ‘Masterpiece’ feels like such a perfect example of their work.
We were inspired by this song when writing songs on our album. ‘Friends Forever’ in the verses we wanted a slight sort of bounciness that Big Thief do so well. The lyrics too we wanted a certain nostalgia – non specific but conjuring different vivid imagery. Adrienne Lenker is masterful with her lyrics.
With Big thief we’ve always felt in a sense connected to their music in the way of using different range of tender and heavy sounds. A folksiness but a heavy aggressiveness at times and switching beyond that in using it for drama and dynamics.
All hail Big Thief.
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Radiohead – ‘Planet Telex’ (Picked by Matt)
I was listening to a lot of early Radiohead at the start of the first lockdown and ‘The Bends’ was an album that was definitely on the brain when we got into the studio.
I’ve been obsessed with the whole album for ever but I kept listening to ‘Planet Telex’ over and over for some reason. That sound at the start of the whole album is just so iconic and you just know what it is as soon as it starts. The drum groove kicks in and you know you’re in for a ride. It’s so iconic, and for me it’s super nostalgic and just takes me right back.
I was listening to this one when we started writing and it definitely got me in the zone for recording ‘Shoals’.
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Omni – ‘Courtesy Call’ (Picked by Rupert)
Amazing song by a great band, I was listening this song heavily almost everyday going into the studio. This song in particular was really inspiring in getting those snapier guitar tones into the recordings. In the past we have built barriers for ourselves with our standard reverby guitar tones but the choppy/stabby clean guitar really cuts through. Which was something that we really wanted to take into this record. It has a Television-esque vibe who have always been a favourite.
The syncopation between the guitars, bass and drums is really inspiring, we have tended to be more of a weaving band but the way but the way the song elvoves and keeps its snappy rhythm really helped us to break the mould with our song writing process. Approaching it from a different angle in terms of tone and rhythm really helped us get different results on this record.
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‘Shoals’ is out now.
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