Chapel Club / Palace

Chapel Club
Palace
(Polydor/Interscope)

Hey you! Yes, you boys from White Lies. And you! Yes Interpol, we can see you in the corner pretending to be a human Tetris formation. You’re fooling no-one, get over here.
Now, we have some unfortunate news for you: you no longer have the monopoly on dark, brooding music. You see, there are some new kids in town by the name of Chapel Club and they… well, they just do it better.
The London-based five-piece inhabit a territory somewhere between the two aforementioned bands – which is probably why they work so well. Not as preoccupied with death as White Lies, nor as reliant on the creation of dark soundscapes as Interpol, Chapel Club find themselves free of any pigeonholing shackles that might otherwise restrict them.
This freedom has quickly developed into confidence – a confidence which is more than evident on their current single ‘Surfacing’. Who amongst you could honestly say you expected to hear the woozy refrain from ‘Dream A Little Dream Of Me’ in the song’s chorus? Exactly. Yet it completely works; it counterbalances the track’s undercurrent of scenester-hating bile, leaving behind an absolutely pounding single.
Debut single ‘O Maybe I’ provided the band with an excellent platform to build on, but the fact that it doesn’t appear until track nine gives you an idea of quite how strong the other material on ‘Palace’ is – and how confident the band is in it.
Most of the darker, moody albums these days offer the occasional sliver of light to remind you that life’s not all that bad. By contrast, Chapel Club’s ‘Palace’, for all its melancholic leanings, offers prolonged flashes of brilliance that’ll blind you if you look at them for too long. Fortunately, this won’t prevent you listening to them… which you should… because they’re brilliant.