Nashville-based band Palm Ghosts are pleased to share “The Painful Truth” the latest single to be lifted from their anticipated new full-length album, The Lost Frequency onNovember 19(pre-order). Palm Ghosts’ Joseph Lekkas says, “‘The Painful Truth’ is an 80s inspired dance track with a thrumming, arpeggiated bass line and a simple, bright lead line. In contrast to its sound, the song’s lyrical content lives in a much darker and less optimistic place. Focusing on the flooding, wildfires and intolerable heat indexes we’ve grown accustomed to, ‘The Painful Truth is a mirror into a bleak future.” The single is streaming now now at YouTube and will be on all streaming platforms on Friday for any playlist shares.
“The Painful Truth” follows up the album’s first single “Bloodlight” which was released last month. The song’s official video was directed by Nick Hawl and produced by Ty Laird. It features Ben de la Cour, Jessica Bell, Charles Hager and Cole Morseand can be shared at YouTube. The song debuted at Post-Punk and is available now on all streaming platforms and Bandcamp.
On the song Lekkas says, “‘Bloodlight’ is a dark dance track that compares the climate crisis to a crime scene.” He adds, “Luminol is a chemical commonly used in forensics for the detection of blood stains. Nothing vanishes without a trace and particles of blood adhere to surfaces for years. The same applies to what humans have done to the earth. The damage will remain long after we are gone.
“The Lost Frequency follows up the band’s acclaimed album Lifeboat Candidate which was released earlier this year. Lifeboat Candidate is a giant ear worm on unrest, isolation, and frustration. While the world has not changed much since then, Palm Ghosts’ new album The Lost Frequency is different. It is an album lost to the pandemic (literally it was supposed to be released last year). It hearkens back to before this life in stasis, back to when things were almost normal, which is what we are all clamoring for again – normalcy…a sense of calm after a year lost.
The sound of an 80s prom in a war zone…located in the dead heart of country music, Nashville, TN. That is the sound and spirit of Palm Ghosts, as far from the honky-tonks and pedal taverns of their adopted city as one can get. More at home in rainy Manchester or blustery Berlin, the quartet weaves early cinematic dream pop and new wave with brooding post punk. Embracing their 80’s idols, like New Order, The Cure, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, and even Divine to name a few, these Nashville transplants released 2018’s Architecture. Since then, they have built upon that release with a steady stream of songs invigorating the modern era with the 80’s youth ethos.
In that sense, the music of The Lost Frequency feels almost whimsical and celebratory, at least less antagonistic and snarky than Lifeboat Candidate felt, but it certainly is nostalgic and less like a war, more like a prom. However, the lyrics still bring confrontation to the forefront, and remind us that normalcy is still devastating.
The Lost Frequency’s album opener, “Bloodlight,” imagines global warming as a crime scene. Then, “Young Empire” spryly scolds American culture as a stubborn, petulant child before jumping back to global destruction themes in The Painful Truth. These songs could be a trilogy, as if the world were a disco ball smashing to the ground over which dancers continue to tread, oblivious to the cutting shards.
All this stasis, this waiting around and growing impatience, means the band has a huge backlog of new music to unleash, and if you still need convincing that you don’t need to be a prom wallflower and can get on the dance floor.
