There are large rock riffs on Eye on the Bat, however El Kempner additionally stretches the sound of Palehound to new locations.

Tonje Thilesen/Courtesy of the artist

conceal caption

toggle caption

Tonje Thilesen/Courtesy of the artist

There are large rock riffs on Eye on the Bat, however El Kempner additionally stretches the sound of Palehound to new locations.

Tonje Thilesen/Courtesy of the artist

Eye on the Bat, the newest album from Palehound, is crammed with physique elements. There is a “shaking fist” and a “b**** that grows like hair.” There is a punch within the face; one other within the intestine; one other within the arm. Our bodies are held like a dinner plate, a paperweight, a tiny clock. Not one however two songs characteristic bloody palms.

Throughout Palehound’s earlier three albums, singer and songwriter El Kempner has been no stranger to filling their songs — wiry indie rock that mixes poignant reflections with Kempner’s skillful, playful method to guitar — with sharp imagery. The place a lot of Black Friday, their final launch, was crammed with the liberating pleasure of recent love, Eye on the Bat turns the pressure of Kempner’s consideration towards a pair simultaneous collapses. In early 2020, Palehound was imagined to tour the nation behind Black Friday; because the tour acquired scrapped and the world shut down, Kempner’s romantic relationship fell aside, too. All through Eye on the Bat, Kempner renders these crises as bodily experiences: a “abdomen doing backflips,” a “chilly feeling rising in my throat,” a personified evil with which they “share a cranium.” The visceral palette provides the report a way of directness, like there isn’t any technique to conceal the reality; even when Kempner is participating with metaphor, you may really feel the which means in your intestine.

Eye on the Bat is not a completely brooding pay attention, or solely a doc of catastrophe: Palehound has all the time been a automobile for Kempner’s acrobatic, nimble guitar taking part in, and right here, there is a joyful high quality to the vary of types they deploy. Kempner has lately cited inspiration from fellow guitarists like Adrianne Lenker, Hannah Learn of Lomelda and Meg Duffy of Hand Habits — all buddies of theirs who favor artistic, creative approaches over basic rock-god stylings. Kempner has mentioned specifically that, whereas on tour with Massive Thief, they admired and aimed to emulate Lenker’s fingerpicking fashion, and you may hear that affect within the intricate acoustic riffs throughout Eye on the Bat. That is to not say Kempner has deserted their love of huge rock riffs fully — the album is teeming with propulsive power and artistic textures; plus, songs like “The Clutch” and “Head Like Soup” characteristic large, superb guitar solos. In between Black Friday and this new report, Kempner additionally shaped the band Bachelor with multi-instrumentalist and producer Melina Duterte of Jay Som. They’ve mentioned the expertise of working with Duterte gave them confidence after they stepped into the studio to make Eye on the Bat, which Kempner co-produced alongside Sam Owens. It allow them to stretch the sound of Palehound to new locations, as on “U Need It U Bought It,” a charmingly unsteady, warbling observe about devotion and disconnects, that Kempner produced virtually fully at dwelling.

Eye on the Bat finds its most spectacular moments of readability when Kempner highlights the disconnect between the physique and the mind — as on the album’s placing opening observe, the place Kempner describes a romantic gesture that devolves into a sense of absurdity. On the cathartic “Independence Day,” Kempner wonders why a freak automotive accident did not carry them and their soon-to-be-ex nearer: “All it did,” they sing, “was drive the purpose dwelling in my physique and my thoughts.” Typically, our mind is aware of one thing earlier than our physique can catch up; typically it takes the shock of one thing bodily for our thoughts to just accept the reality. By cataloging the painful fact of those moments, Palehound gives a reminder of the way it feels to outlive them.