Palace

PALACE will release their dark, enchanting debut album ‘So Long Forever’ on Fiction Records on 4th November 2016. It is the kind of record you don’t want to become a premonition. Frontman Leo Wyndham had written it about the recent separation of his parents and the death of a family member; songs of destructive relationships, painful splits and bitter regrets. Then, album recorded but the blows still fresh, he suffered a break-up himself and the album took on an even darker relevance. “Two or three of the songs were almost predictions,” Leo says ruefully. “’So Long Forever’ and ‘Live Well’ are about things that had never happened to me in a relationship but have all kind of come true.” Clearly an album of dark magic, ‘So Long Forever’ is your cordial invite to Palace, this generation’s most moving evolution in alt-rock. They sing of heartbreak, family ructions, death and diving headfirst into relationships they know will destroy them. They make sumptuous, soulful rock music in a dour ex-munitions factory. They’re the fatalistic sound of the future.  From a dank art warehouse in Tottenham to the world’s most revered stages comes a band that merge the modernist guitar intricacies of Foals and Maccabees with the evocative depths of Nick Drake, Neil Young and John Fahey, Peter Green’s roots blues and the esoteric experiments of King Krule and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. What emerges on the debut album is an atmospheric swirl of sound and melody that shifts from gargantuan future stadium rock to lovelorn torch song like a storm at sea. “We wanted it to be really diverse,” says drummer Matt Hodges, “lots of ups and downs, massive epic moments then dropping down to intimate moments. I really think we’ve nailed it.” Palace have always written and recorded in The Arch - a warehouse community of musicians, artists and designers in Tottenham where they took over a spray-painted room in an ex-munitions factory that had been used as a drug den and transformed it into a “semi-functional” studio and rehearsal space by hand. It was here they wrote and recorded their first two critically acclaimed EP’s – ‘Lost in the Night’ and ‘Chase the Light’ – and it was here, with personal issues rocking the band, a whole new raft of darker, more personal songs emerged. Come November 2015, they were ready to record their debut album and ventured off their self-imposed ‘craggy’ island for the first time to Unwound Studios in Hackney, with producer Adam Jaffery (Dev Hynes, Beach Baby) at the helm. “We’ve always liked that DIY vibe,” Leo says, “it’s suited us so far, doing things ourselves in a slightly dodgy studio. But the album was our first experience of being in swanky-ish studio where everything works and there’s someone who knows what they’re doing. Before, what we knew was stuff that was a bit shit and a bit broken and everything was too hot or too cold in the room.” The finished product feels all-consuming. From the brooding post-math firestorm of first single ‘Break The Silence’ – recalling noise-pop legends like Kitchens Of Distinction and Sigur Ros as well as more contemporary atmos-rockers, the track received its first play from Radio 1’s Annie Mac, swiftly followed by Huw Stephens, 6Music’s Tom Ravenscroft and Radio X’s John Kennedy - to ornate, broken paeans like ‘It’s Over’ and ‘Slaving On’, it’s a record that tackles loss, love, and the shifting tides of human emotion with both power and restraint. A self-destructive infatuation drives the single, Leo howling, “I wanna burn in your fire” to reflect “the idea of being drawn to someone you know is going to destroy you in some way. Someone who’s dangerous but equally appealing and attractive. You almost can’t help yourself… there’s something intoxicating about knowing you’re going to get hurt or crushed in some way.” It’s when Leo writes about love and relationships that the album becomes an unknowing prediction of the heartbreak to come. The record’s break-ups are the source of both deep despond (‘It’s Over’) and wistful optimism (the breezy au revoir of ‘Live Well’), while Fire In The Sky obsesses over the possibility of a long distance affair falling apart. ‘Bitter’ explores his unhealthy jealousy, and ‘Have Faith’ is a cry for help from an anxious insomniac craving “strength and solidity” in a relationship he could subliminally sense cracking apart. Elsewhere, Leo’s writing is even closer to home. ‘Family’ is a message of hope and solidarity to his loved ones and ‘Holy Smoke’ is a tribute to the family member he lost last year. “‘Holy Smoke’ refers to this thing where you open the window and the soul goes out of the window when someone dies,” Leo says.  It all adds up to a stirring, fine-crafted journey around the heart’s bruised chambers, and a cathartic turning point for Leo, buoyed by rapturously recieved summer appearances at Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds. “I have this sense of freedom, creatively,” he says. "When you suddenly find yourself on your own again out of a long relationship. It's nice to be able to channel everything into the music. It helps a lot." He grins. "I'm trying to be positive."