Philadelphia's Palm (guitarists Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt, bassist Gerasimos Livitsanos and drummer Hugo Stanley) debuted with the EPs
Ode to Scott (2013) and
Into The Bulk (2013).
The 25-minute cassette Ostrich Vacation (2015) is the real manifesto of their art.
The first side contains two main songs:
a shower of dissonant guitar chords and moribund vocals (the rare vocals); and a
jarring, syncopated Captain Beefheart-ian blues.
The second side begins with the spastic noise-rock of Ostrich Vacation and, after the degenerate funk-rock of Is Everything Okay, ends with
the dejected guitar strumming of Tomorrow the World.
The first album, Trading Basics (2015),
boasts another Beefheart-ian romp
(Crank), although contaminated by angelic
vocal harmonies;
the convoluted Canterbury-school prog-rock of Ankles;
the prickly and energetic jamming of You Are What Eats You;
and
the limping and dissonant Garden, the harshest of the set.
There are also relatively regular songs, like Second Ward, with
vocal harmonies worthy of the Beach Boys.
Overall, it's high-quality brainy noise-rock.
They would have been great
in the age of Polvo and
Don Caballero.
Songs like Two Toes on the
six-song EP Shadow Expert (2017)
already signaled a transition towards more radio-friendly melodies.
The transition came to fruition on their
second album Rock Island (Carpark, 2018). Next to
the dreamy lullaby Pearly
and the atmospheric instrumental Theme From Rock Island
there are Composite, that sounds like a psychedelic remix of a Beach Boys ditty,
Bread, that sounds like a minimalist remix of
the Mamas & the Papas,
and
Dog Milk, which sounds like a ghostly remix of a Caribbean dance.
The extreme spastic style of the early days still permeates Forced Hand
but the future is clearly in the romantic
ballad mode of Swimmer and Happen.
Nicks and Grazes (Saddle Creek, 2022), produced by Matt Anderegg, contains the single Feathers.
