Palehound - Eye On The Bat [FULL ALBUM STREAM]

Listen/Buy: https://palehound.ffm.to/eye-on-the-bat
Tour Dates: https://www.palehound.com/tour

‪@palehoundsounds‬ heavy-hitting new album, Eye On The Bat - out July 14, 2023.

1. Good Sex (0:00)
2. Independence Day (1:41)
3. The Clutch (5:20)
4. Eye On The Bat (8:30)
5. U Want It U Got It (11:26)
6. Route 22 (13:55)
7. My Evil (17:46)
8. Head Like Soup (20:10)
9. Right About You (23:39)
10. Fadin’ (26:14)

Palehound's songwriting has always been generous and personal, dispatches from a deep inner world. On Eye On The Bat, though, we meet El Kempner anew: a guttural howl; white-hot and blistering catharsis; a feverish and visceral and painful present. The record charts something that divides you into “before” and “after.” It’s a documentation of illusions shattering, the danger of fantasy, of heartbreak, and the pain of growth. A tangle of raw nerves coming undone amongst swelling, propulsive instrumentation.

Recorded in brief stints across 2022 at Flying Cloud Recordings in the Catskills, the space between each session gave Kempner more time to breathe, to revisit the songs after time away. Kempner co-produced Eye On The Bat alongside Sam Owens (Big Thief, Cass McCombs), who was also crucial to the process -- lending assistance yet allowing Kempner to take the reins on producing, to call the shots on the session and step into their own as a producer.

Kempner also credits multi-instrumentalist Larz Brogan, who they refer to as “their platonic life partner” and longtime member of Palehound since the Boston DIY days, as a vital part of making the album come together the way it did. They make Kempner feel seen - allow them to be vulnerable, to experiment, to push themself in the studio. After playing together for so many years, Brogan and Kempner both wanted to push themselves to make a record that sounded less produced, one that simply captured the raw energy of Palehound live.

Opening track “Good Sex” charts trying to make a relationship work, the desperation to recapture something, in searing detail; before dissolving into “Independence Day,” its chaotic counterpart, where you realize you can’t and find yourself breaking someone’s heart in the glow of fireworks. “The Clutch” flies by red flags, plunging forward even though it shouldn’t, even though it’s speeding toward heartbreak; while “My Evil” is about being the heartbreaker, hurting someone you never could have imagined hurting. Accepting that, even if unintentional, we all act as villains in someone else’s story.

The poetry is still present – full of aching and shrine-building to minutiae – but it feels genuinely diaristic and authentic. In the past, Kempner admits to hiding behind poetic notions, burying the hurt in metaphors. But here, El’s at their most open and vulnerable.

Eye On The Bat is not a hopeful record in content, but it’s immediately recognizable as the sort of totem you come out clutching on the other side of profound change. It’s cerebral, trying to make sense of grief in a grocery store or an argument in a parking lot, plumbing the anxious depths of the interiors. It feels like a promise to yourself – if you made it through that, you’ll handle whatever comes next.


#Palehound #EyeOnTheBat #ElKempner

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