Plastic Palace Alice
Like A Light
12 Track, LP (2011, Independent)
Related: Plastic Palace Alice.
It’s interesting, and perhaps a touch ironic, that the second long-player from Melbourne sextet Plastic Palace Alice is called Like A Light, given how horrifyingly dark it is. Full-lipped, pouty piano. Long, dark-haired guitar swathes. Heavily mascara-ed vocal delivery. It’s like a soundtrack to the steps of Flinders Street Station back in the late ’90s, twisted a little via ’80s goth-pop, then viewed through a long lens, giving it a picturesque feel not unlike Arcade Fire.
Like A Light comes three years after the group’s debut, The Great Depression, and it’s one of two new albums the band have recorded. (Whether its sonic sibling sees the light of day is anyone’s guess.) Gone is the lushness of The Great Depression, replaced by a considered, more finely honed sound. Some might say it’s the mark of a band finding their collective feet, but it all comes across as far too serious, and at times contrived.
Heart Weighs A Tonne - Plastic Palace Alice by showoffservices
Yes, vocal harmonies abound and they’re still thinking outside the box – there are electronic drones, high-end organ bells, subtle drum and guitar lines – but it’s all a little too precise, and therein lies the problem. Songs like ‘This Is How You’ll Explode’, the Portishead-like ‘En Masse’ and ‘Zeitgeist Blues’ lack personality and some much-needed grit. They need to be slightly off the mark, because that’s what makes them real.
It seems almost ridiculous to criticise an album for being so well-delivered, but while Like A Light is a good record, it’s not the band we remember from The Great Depression, which exuded fun, power, depth and charm in spades. Sometimes perfection isn’t worth striving for.
by Sam Fell
The next installment of our regular round-up of the best new music on …
Melbourne sextet Plastic Palace Alice are set to unveil their debut al…
A pretty accurate description, if the track posted above is anything to go by. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, I really like aspects of the above track. However, the arrangement of the track really grates on my after a while, it comes across as slightly schizophrenic, or like they want to cram too much into the song - kinda like in the last Lord of the Rings movie where you keep on thinking the movie's going to end and that would be perfect, but then it just continues and continues and continues.
God i hate Lord of the Rings movies.
i think the title Like a Light isn't meant to be all lightweight and nice, but is meant to be taken in the context of, ''out like a light'', which is appropriately dark. because turning off a light does make things darker. (a little factoid there, for anybody who didn't already know how lights work)
I mixed these guys at the Birmy for their residency.. They hated being compared to arcade fire... But...