Every year it seems, a group of boys from England pack up their guitars and their bags, travel across the Atlantic and attempt to penetrate the minds of North Americans with their own version of Cool Britannia. In the past decade alone, we have witnessed acts such as The Cribs, Hard-Fi, Kaiser Chiefs, The Automatic, The Fratellis, The Kooks, Brother, The Vaccines and a host of others attempt this journey. Hailed as NME’s next greatest thing, London’s four piece band Palma Violets appear to be next in line. Already adorned with NME’s best song in 2012, the group seems to have amassed an equal amount of fans and naysayers. This sort of hype was the sort that filled the Horseshoe on Thursday night, where Palma Violet’s task for the night seemed to be to do two things:
– impress the fans of the band
– shut up cynics who openly mock NME’s tendency to make grand statements about new music
What transpired was a short set that told us a few things we probably already knew –
– Palma Violets <> Libertines. While the latter bathed in melody, story telling for the classes and contains an ambitious message for some sort of middle class utopia, Palma Violets are a bit more rugged, a bit more raw and a little less memorable. Their duo vocals of Sam Fryer and Chilli Jesson remind me more of the brothers in the Cribs if only for either groups penchant for screaming a wooo after each sentence.
– Guitar rock is still very much alive
– Best of Friends is still a fantastic song, in fact, it was easily the bands best song. The material I heard otherwise was okay overall, but lack the hook that made Best of Friends so memorable.
Having said that, it’s been a great start to their careers, so it’ll be interesting to see where the momentum takes them.