Palm Ghosts - The Golden Age

 

 

"Some days were sunlight, some were rain"

Joe Lekkas can do no wrong in my ears. His voice is like honey. Warm, nostalgic, familiar, honey. Palm Ghosts are that amazing group that I wouldn't have fully understood as an angsty teen in the nineties but I would have been wholly into them but as an adult, I would have looked back and gone...."Damn, I get it now" but as an angsty adult, I don't have to go through all that. Their particular brand of shoegaze, dream pop, new new romantic new wave or whatever you want to classify it as makes me so damn happy. This is the music that I want to just put on repeat and get lost in my own world to. It's everything I need it to be and then some. It's warm and it's a hug from an old friend and it's got the exact right amount of synth in it to tap into all those pleasure centers that make me feel like we've been on this long journey together listening to Bauhaus and Echo and the Bunnymen and we've finally come to the end of the trip and our road trip of a movie has come to fruition.

I get so damn hyped up when I hear them but it's not an off the chart level of excitement but something more subdued that just makes me know that everything will be ok. That all the shit that I sweat will fall away. It's just good and I know that I'm not the only person out there that's experiencing this rush of contentment when they listen to their music. I just read the lyrics of the song and I'll be damned if this track isn't describing everything I'm experiencing right this very minute as I listen to the song for the fifth or eighth time. The Golden Age in a relationship when everything is where it needs to be and everything has perfectly fallen into place through thick and thin. It's the good times and the bad that are necessary for you to fully understand and appreciate what you've got. It's the sour and the sweet that come together to balance  life. It's that person, those people, that experience that connect you to everything bigger than yourself and it's all wrapped up here in 5 minutes and 4 seconds.

I don't know if they know just how important they are in today's climate. I don't know if they realize the impact they are making on fans of a certain age and new fans alike. Palm Ghosts have become one of my favorite groups in a relatively short amount of time and it's not hard to understand why.

Palm Ghosts on the Web

Palm Ghosts - Better to Know

The New Romantic era of 80s New Wave is probably my most favorite time periods in music. Whether it's Echo and the Bunnymen or The Cure or The Cocteau Twins or to some extent singles by INXS or The B-52s, that whole time period was beautifully expressive and to hear a song in 2019 that immediately sweeps me back to that much more innocent time in my life makes me swoon with enviable delight. It absolutely amazes me when a band can so succinctly capture a feeling and an attitude of an entire era and put it in a time capsule the way that Nashville based, Palm Ghosts has on their new single, "Better to Know". I easily hear so many influences in this track and it makes me feel absolutely incredible to be transported through time for 4 minutes and 24 seconds. I hear nuances of Kate Pierson's delivery mixed with Michael Hutchence and Daniel Ash in Joespeh Lekkas' vocal performance.

Go here and listen to the track. You should absolutely hear it before you go further. Go on. I'll wait.

I've had to listen to "Better to Know" over and over because while I want to pay attention to the lyrics and hear what he's saying, I just keep getting swept up in the absolute utmost joy in the song. The way they structure the track so everything comes in one at a time and builds the space for Joseph's amazing vocals, the building of the instrumentation toward the chorus, the dreamy space they create where you just get lost and wrapped up in nostalgic bliss. The intro alone has been in the making for 35 years. Christ, this song is just making my Friday the best day I've had in a long time. Atmospheric doesn't begin to properly describe how this track just fills up all the space you give it. It just grows and grows to match exactly what you need it to be. To be fair, this song has made me so freaking giddy.

I feel like this song is really about how you interact with yourself.

"The slack-jawed mantra in merging the two / The overreach for harmony in lies / Is of you more telling"

The things we tell ourselves in order to make it from day to day. The ideals we build into our own dogma that helps us interact with those around us while trying to be as true to ourselves as possible can sometimes be the most difficult challenge we face. We have to learn to bend like reeds in the wind opposed to staying rigid and firm in the eye of the storm otherwise we will break and never grow. The idea of introspection and digging into ourselves as we become more fully realized versions of who we are meant to be is terrifying in the social media age where everything is so carefully curated. I feel that the juxtaposition of these thoughts and feelings against the landscape of such a New Romantic song where things weren't as "artificial" in terms of interpersonal relationships is an incredible dichotomy.

As I've sat here for the greater part of a day, digesting this song, it's clear to see that if no where else, I need this message in my own life. To strip away all the attempts to be socially perfect and white glove test approved and just be myself because in the end of the day, it's me; the real me that matters and the people in my life are there because I am that person. They're in my life for the same reason because I love them and not the idea of them. Not the Stepford version but the version where all the imperfections, the bumps and bruises make them who they are. Not the color corrected, over filtered selfie version and I think we all need to remember that on even our worst days. It's not who we perceive ourselves to be that matters but who we truly are and what we represent.

I can't wait to get to know these guys and gals more because I think their musical point of view is sorely missing from today's pop landscape.

Click here to preorder the single today!!