When I first heard this project was happening, I might or might not has peed my pants. It's basically Isis rearranged with Chino Moreno on vocals. Can you say "Novak is going to piss herself"?
I forgot about the album for a while after it had already been out for a while, but was suddenly reminded by listening to a link to the song Future Warrior. I listened no further and went STRAIGHT out and bought the album. I figured even if the rest of it bombs, it's a thing I ought to have in my Isis fantard collection. But no, it's predictably a solid record and essentially exactly what you would expect from the lineup: they pick up where Isis left off on that split with Melvins, but with Chino on vocals, and commandeering the song structure more than I've ever heard a vocalist do. More recent Deftones material is actually rather similar to Isis, so it's not hard to wedge his style into the music. In fact, it's kind of refreshing to hear the Isis guys forced out of the old style which many people considered formulaic. I can't exactly disagree, but it's a formula that I very much love and am happy to have a lot of.
I listened to the album few a couple days solid after purchasing it, and then slipped back into whatever phase I was having before I was interrupted. Going back to it, it has lost some of it's initial strength. I have to admit that every time I stick it in, I pull it back out after the first track. It doesn't get an A+, not even an A. I would give it a B+ if I were operating on that grading system, but I'm not, so I guess I'll just have to say it's not the most long-term engaging thing I've heard, but the crop of new music this year has been a little disappointing so it really stands out as one of the better fresh releases of 2013. And frankly, one cannot go wrong with anything related to Isis. Except maybe that Greymachine album that not even my Lord and Saviour Justin Broadrick could save (can I possibly write anything without mentioning him?). In fact, I'm inclined to blame him for injecting TOO much noise into it. But I digress.
Palms is an exciting project for people like me, and I hope their next offering (if there is one) is a little...more. A little bigger and more epic and all-encasing.
http://palmsband.com/
http://ipecac.com/
