Review – Surrounding The Void
Slawek Migacz
I have to say that Czar Of Bullets and their twin divisions Czar Of Crickets, Czar Of Revelations, they all releasing just most incredible and modern albums to date. If I got it right, I have reviewed Swiss bands from these labels so far and I do know if they dealing with their local scene only but in fact, Palmer is another band from that beautiful region of Europe.
This is one hour long album and for me it gets better with each minute. With just opening tracks (Home is where I lead you, Misery) they slowly started exploring spaces and finding the vibe of the album. They unsettle the atmosphere of the album but they have strong attitude of the songs so it gives me comfort to look forward to each song with highest interest. The pace of the songs is mostly from slow to mid tempos so they obviously give it time to turn into best possible forms of creativity. Palmer jumps into black holes of music in hope to get something new out of it and they often come back from there with splendid ideas for songs and cold waves of music that comes along. If I had to label the music, then for sure, there are a lot of modern doom metal parts associated to the entire album with desperate vocals but I could not classified this band just like that. I`ll write about it a bit more later on. What`s interesting next , they are unpredictable with their music and even if they have quite few nice patterns driving the songs, it does not feel like they repeat themselves. It is not this kind of album which is spectacular or anything like that. They rather void cliché and they are drifting their music like astronauts in open spaces in their slow motion movements. Songs like Divergent, Digital Individual, Rising, Implosion just gravitating in the air and touch some of my senses for very first time. I would not expect if I ever could experience music in any new way but it`s just feels like it at some points. I do not say this is best album out there but a song Importunity for example just blew me away and this is my number one of the album along with Misery. This is the album I can simply call a post-metal and doom and sludge are just elements of their whole music spectrum.
They produced a polished sound to it but with unique groove, so heavy moments are heavier and melodic parts are more funereal in its character.
Palmer, in my opinion has a huge potential as a band. Post-metal still remains unexplored by any meanings but when I listen to Surrounding The Void, I realize that my hunger for this genre becomes bigger by desire, not by the choice. Also, it is an alternative for typical metal albums. Palmer has any opportunity to grow up number of their fans and community, exactly from metal audience as well. This great album have it all what it takes to achieve this goal eventually.