Palma Violets won't be so forgiving to those that have written them off
before an album has even surfaced. With Jake Bugg mania finally coming to a
stop, Palma Violets can now fill the pages for the next six months. After NME
overrated a local lad from Nottingham, Palma Violets featured on the front
cover. Unjust to some, however to the magazine's true core. After all, it is
supposed to be about new music. Palma Violets haven’t been around for long,
stacking up a number of singles and just recently hitting it big with (what I
considered to be extremely mediocre) "Best of Friends". With debut
album 180 ready for shipping, Palma Violets release their second single,
"Step Up For The Cool Cats".
"Step Up For The Cool Cats" kind of sounds like Arcade Fire's "City With No Children". Palma Violets are becoming somewhat of the Arcade Fire of Europe. I'm sure they wouldn't mind being mentioned in the same sentence as Arcade Fire, that's certainly not a negative. However I’m having doubts about whether these two bands cross influences, with Arcade Fire following a handful of Merge Records influences such as Neutral Milk Hotel and The Magnetic Fields, especially for frontman Win Butler. Palma Violets (who are also signed to an independent label, Rough Trade) have influences from a whole range of sources. From the depths of America's garage rock scene in the 60s to the punk aesthetics seen around Great Britain in the 70s and 80s, Palma Violets have been releasing tight tracks with a punk / garage edge on top of their already established indie presence.
Theirs a striking organ riff which acts as the base. Not every indie-related
bands sounds exactly the same, and Palma Violets are a fresh breed of
Vaccines-like punk fuelled rock music. At times, "Step Up For The Cool
Cats" sounds like a Motown single, then theirs the guitar and distorted vocal
which brings the track back down to Earth, especially with the final 20 seconds
of rock.
~Eddie
