London-based Palace announce their third album ‘Shoals’, due for release on January 21st via Fiction. The album announcement is accompanied by a new single and video ‘Lover (Don’t Let Me Down)’. The band will also play their biggest UK, European and US tours to date next spring, including a date at the O2 Academy Brixton on February 11th.
‘Shoals’ is a profound and pensive album, boldly exploring some of life’s greatest questions over its 12 mesmerising tracks. The album deftly explores the interplay of three central existential dilemmas against a broader backdrop of wonder at the vastness and power of the ocean, concluding its arc with the stunning opus ‘Where Sky Becomes Sea’. Through diving into themes of the subconscious, dreams and existentialism, ‘Shoals’ is broadly a record about living with and processing fear. As frontman Leo Wyndham explains:
“‘Shoals’ is a record about confronting our own fears and anxieties. Through the pandemic we were confronted more than ever with ourselves with little distraction, suddenly seeing who we are in the rawest of forms. It held a mirror up to our flaws and imperfections and forced us to see the real ‘us’.
The record symbolises how our minds can have beautiful yet dangerous depths, like the ocean, and how our fears and thoughts are like shoals of fish that move and shift constantly from place to place; chaotic, often untameable and unpredictable.”
2019’s sophomore album ‘Life After’ is a stunning record with a clear message; hope. Its eleven tracks, that include the heart-wrenching ‘Heaven Up There’, are full of the melodic warmth and rich textures that have come to define Palace’s sound. It is an album in equal parts about loss as well as a manual to moving on, stronger than before.
