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After a suspense-heavy instrumental intro track, the eagerly-awaited debut album from Chapel Club, ‘Palace’ kicks off with ‘Surfacing’, a beautiful, darker than dark version of the 1930s classic ‘Dream a Little Dream’, tinged with the aching cynicism and melancholy that characterises the album.
Chapel Club wear their influences on their sleeve — Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, and more recent contenders such as White Lies — but that doesn’t diminish the fact that 'Palace' is a compelling album. Second track ‘Five Trees’ is all heavy synths, thundering drums and hushed guitars, reminiscent of the new romantic era. Although undeniably derivative, there are enough ingredients here to convince you that they are mixing up a melting pot of something worth hanging on to. Indeed, Lewis Bowman’s voice is very like the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch’s, and there isn’t anything original here in terms of sound, but the lyrics are captivating, the instruments are played faultlessly and if Chapel Club were competing with the ghosts of the genre they conform to, it is likely that they would do very well.
The sad tone of resignation is consolidated on the introspective, obscure ‘After Flood’ (“the echoes were turning slow, it doesn’t matter”), a heavy, plodding number which is wisely followed up with the bolder, relatively upbeat melody of ‘White Knight Position’.
Although the first half of the album is by no means weak, it is in the second half that Chapel Club really come into their own, displaying a self-possession previously hidden and a raw collective talent that should be treasured and honed.
The catchiest track by far is the Strokes-tinted ‘All the Eastern Girls’, but it is the more understated tracks such as revered single ‘The Shore’, and the lovely ‘Blind’ that really stand out. The Shore harbours shadows of the gloomy but glorious poetry of The Red House Painters – the lyric ‘We stayed and wanted more than we had the power to achieve’ is no less than heartbreaking - while the unfurling relationship portrayed in ‘O Maybe I’ reveals a less self-indulgent The Smiths. A diary of a conversation, it strips the music down to simple, pure emotion. 'Fine Light', the only track you can imagine filling a dancefloor, picks up Palace’s pace with its before it winds down again for its final three tracks.
Gentle and aggressive in turn, Palace reveals more depth on each listen but never strays beyond the comfort zone of the already-known. The album’s only fault is its timidity in leaving the band’s obvious influences aside to experiment with the band’s own ideas, but Palace has provided Chapel Club with a promising springboard to take it further next time.
