Album Review: Palms - Palms

For post-rock / post-metal / heavy-gaze / metal-gaze / whatever-you-wanna-call-it fans 2010 was a dark year. The lingering high from the release of Isis' Wavering Radiant album from the year before was brought crashing back to cold reality by the news of the band's breakup. Vocalist, guitarist, and key songwriter Aaron Turner set himself immediately upon other projects – and there sure is not a lack of those. Since the separation he has been attached to the likes of Greymachine, The House of Low Culture, Jodis, Mamiffer, Old Man Gloom, and Split Cranium. But what of the other members of Isis? Messirs Jeff Caxide, Aaron Harris, and Bryant Clifford Meyer were just as responsible for all of those enthralling records as Turner was. These three have been remarkably quiet on the new music front up until now. Their new vehicle travels under the moniker of Palms, and their self-titled album is out through Mike Patton's Ipecac Records.

So what makes Palms different from Isis? First and foremost their vocalist is sure to get them a little extra attention, being none other than Deftones mastermind Chino Moreno. Chino's narcotic wails are a perfect partner in crime to Palms' intoxicating dynamics. The line-up might have changed but some things never do. Rather than reinvent themselves right out of the gate, Palms stick to what they are good at and the album reflects that perfectly. It is divided into six tracks (though with this style of music, the word 'suites' is probably more appropriate) with the average length being about seven minutes. In that time you can expect blissed out waves of guitar, liquid bass grooves, and tonnes upon tonnes of reverb. If anything this album is less hard-hitting than Panopticon or In the Absence of Truth. Those records had seismic levels of heaviness sewn into them whereas Palms opts for a lighter, dream-like quality. Song like 'Patagonia' and 'Shortwave Radio' sounds more like an expanded rendition of Moreno's own Team Sleep project than the band who split albums with Melvins.

Palms end their set with the serene 'Antarctic Handshake'. Just when you have to question the validity of putting your gentlest song on an oddly gentle album right at the end the track is slowly invaded by the unnerving rancor of white noise – a radio-static hum that casts the final few minutes of extended guitar chords in a slightly more dangerous light. The question that has to be asked by the end of the album is have they done enough to differentiate their current work from their classic? If you are a big fan of this style of music a better question is are you going to be satisfied with more of the same? The work of Isis still sounds as fresh and powerful today as it did when it was released so a new addition to the catalogue, albeit with some differences in tone and personnel, is no bad thing. Hopefully with a second album Palms can step further out of their own vast shadows and delve deeper into this new fledgling identity.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: Patagonia, Antarctic Handshake