Fake Palms announce ‘Pure Mind’ LP

Fake Palms

Fake PalmsToronto’s Fake Palms have just announced their sophomore LP, the follow up to their well-regarded 2015 self-titled effort, with them sharing the album’s first single Glass Walls. The album is entitled ‘Pure Mind,’ and is the band’s third release, following their prior full length and 2016’s ‘Heavy Paranoia‘ EP. It will be released via Buzz Records and Pleasence Records on September 15th.

The album sees the band, under the guidance of producers Josh Korody of Beliefs and Graham Walsh of Holy Fuck, exploring a cleaner and more open sound than on previous releases, and incorporating new elements into their songs.

As guitarist le Riche said: “I was listening to a lot of 60’s psych music and wanted to have a song with a chorus that felt reminiscent to that. I got really into the big, drawn out harmonies and the crawling basslines. The crescendo ending came while we were messing around playing the song and Simone flipped the beat around and created a whole new feel. As for a meaning, in the past I’ve always written about what a song means to me or what it’s about, but these things always change with time, and so although I know what the song means to me now, I have no idea how it’ll grow and change with me, so I’ll just let it sit, and be what it wants to be.”

‘Pure Mind’ is Fake Palms’ most expansive and diverse work to date, one that picks of the threads of the band’s earlier releases and rearranges them into new configurations that are greater than the sum of their parts. It’s an exploratory record, both in terms of the songwriting and the production, with every track bearing disparate elements tied together by the band’s road-tested and frequently astounding musicianship, and inventive production provided by Walsh in collaboration with le Riche and Korody, which imbues seemingly every song with a subtle flourish or tone that demands a repeat listen. Be it the blistering opener Fear, on which the band construct a lattice-work of chiming guitars over almost three continuous minutes of intricate full kit rolls from TB, or the almost Beatles-esque harmonies in the chorus of lead single Glass Walls, or the striking minimalism and electronic elements on the beautiful mid-album breakdown Perfect Day, the band find ways to consistently surprise while retaining the urgency that underpinned their first LP.  It’s a consistently challenging record, but one that manages to walk the line between Fake Palms’ abrasive instincts, their pop-leanings, and their overriding urge to explore the edges of their considerable capabilities.

“When we started working on the album, I decided that I wanted to put out the songs I had that sounded the furthest from what we had released until this point,” says le Riche. “I wanted to do things as differently as possible. We took slower songs, ones with less guitar, and tried to do things that weren’t expected of us. We wanted to challenge the idea of what we do as a band, and we wanted to challenge ourselves. I hope that as a band that’s something we never stop doing. We’re at our best when we’re pushing toward the next thing.”

Fake Palms Pure Minds

Tracklist

1. Fear
2. I’m Not There
3. Heaven Scent
4. Glass Walls
5. II
6. Perfect Day
7. Fall Ahead
8. Holograms
9. Can’t Erase
10. Cannot Describe
11. Yr Such A Nag