Review: Palmer – This one goes to eleven
PALMER, the Suisse band isn’t a must heard band name so far. However, This One Goes To Eleven should change this situation abruptly. Let’s have a look at their history: PALMER was founded back in 2000. Without releasing a demo the band played tons of concerts – a fine feedback the underground gave. In 2004 the Suisse guys did the reality check and perpetuate their first takes on a demo. Here and there gigs with Caliban, Gurd or Blood For Blood followed before entering the studio again in 2007 to record This One Goes To Eleven – produced by the Gurd buddies. The result is a damned phat hunk of aggression starting in Jazz and finishing in the Skinlab trademarks. A wide scope to shine a light on: the tracks are consistently dominated by a heavy riffing with a heavier atmosphere that is kept up by constant conclusive song writing. The accelerator pedal is hardly ever pushed through, so that the pit-effect fails to appear. However, in view of the tracks’ intensity this isn’t needed. Songs like Shedding Skin, Bury The Bones or Deception confronts you with an oppressive wall of sound to bang against. And this will be exhausting enough. A breather is given when PALMER reduces the pressure and, even if rare, drift into Jazz fields (Seals Divided or Shedding Skin) or worm tunes out of the six strings which are redolent of a whale’s singing like in Who Am I. The mood isn’t interrupted by this in any way; in fact they fit into the overall picture very well. Shouter Steve gives you the rest with his core-based vocals. At least This One Goes To Eleven asks us riddles: as slip-proof this album is the ninth and last song is titled Eleven and when the booklet is opened, this is enumerated until 11. That what hides after this non-musical outro Eleven PALMER is free to tell us at every opportunity.