Now greater than ever, the flip to bounce music appears like an inevitable a part of an indie rock band’s lifespan. Due to the marvel of streaming, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than your native favorites uncover disco or dubstep, pulling quicker tempos and funkier grooves into their sound — to variable levels of success. Credit score is because of Palm, then, for making it appear easy. Their mix of genres is large enough to include no matter they throw at it, they usually’ve thrown all the pieces however the kitchen sink into their third studio album Nicks and Grazes. Harsh noise, math rock, techno, psychedelia, Afro-pop, and a heaping serving of Brian Wilson-isms all coexist in good disharmony below the band’s large prime tent.
Apparent comparisons out of the way in which first: Nicks and Grazes sounds loads like Merriweather Submit Pavilion, Animal Collective’s benchmark indie-pop crossover from 2009. Each are adept at balancing infectious melodies and discordant elaborations; each demand contemplation whereas urging the listener to maneuver their physique; each sort of sound like they’re being performed at an underwater rave. On “Parable Lickers,” twin vocalists Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt strike a lifeless ringer for Panda Bear and Avey Tare’s signature harmonies. This isn’t pure pastiche by any means—even AnCo couldn’t ship twice on their very own profitable formulation, and 2012’s Centipede Hz upset followers gained over by the ebullient rallying cries of “My Women” and “Brother Sport.” Nicks and Grazes, alternatively, feels just like the second coming of the Merriweather successor that by no means was.
Taken as an entire, Nicks and Grazes is a document displaced from time. A few of these songs may’ve been birthed on the stage at CBGB circa 1977; there are traces all through of the Brooklyn psych-folk scene, out of which got here not solely Animal Collective but in addition Gang Gang Dance (of the eternally bangers “MindKilla” and “Glass Jar”). However for all of those Manhattanite factors of reference, Palm—the quartet of Alpert and Kurt, plus Gerasimos Livitsanos on bass and drummer Hugo Stanley—are Philly by and thru. Their native noisemaker friends embrace Spirit of the Beehive, in addition to Kristine Leschper’s former outfit Moms, who Palm toured with on the again of their final album, Rock Island.
The road that opens “Glass Jar” is an ideal epithet for Palm’s music: “I can hear all the pieces, It’s all the pieces time.” That’s the guiding philosophy behind each Rock Island and its follow-up, however Nicks and Grazes has the sting of sounding like extra by each potential metric. There are noises right here that hew nearer to a chunk of plastic—on opening salvo “Contact and Go”—or metallic that one of many members present in a scrapyard and began banging on within the studio. A dubstep beat and jazz drum breaks pile on prime of that junkyard metal to put the inspiration for “Feathers” — a reputation that solely is sensible if these feathers are product of metal, raining loss of life by a thousand cuts down upon the listener.
Regardless of the dissonance, the songs on the core of Nicks and Grazes are fairly tender — life affirming, even. Traces of digital detritus and off-kilter rhythms swirl round elliptical, chantlike melodies on “Mirror Mirror” and “Tumbleboy,” the latter of which first appeared on a cut up launch between Kurt and Ada Babar in 2017. Proper smack dab in the midst of the document, “On The Sly” pulls another over on the listener by stripping away nearly each embellishment, till what’s left is a (comparatively) simple math rock jam with an irresistibly heat glow. Listening to Nicks and Grazes for the primary time, its skill to shock pulls you in. “On The Sly” cracks open the shell to disclose the pure, attractive songs on the middle of the album — they’re what retains the awe going as soon as the shock has worn off.
Nicks and Grazes by Palm is available now via Saddle Creek Records; pay attention beneath.
