Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Music cannot exist in the soul unless it has a meaning, it must be a symbol, even a design to it that makes it stand out, that makes it impressive, no matter the form, no matter the immensity, if it has no plan, if it is written just for the sake of making a noise, creating a jumbled chaos that makes more of a statement about the artist, then there is surely no foundation, no Architecture in place that can make the blueprint that was poured over, worth a damn.

Everything must have a blueprint, all that goes before is performance to get the draught and the proposal right, it is that schematic that the Architecture is seen to fit the surroundings and for Nashville based Palm Ghosts, the encircling sound that grabs at the conscious of the listener is a pulsing rhythm of enticing purity, a construction site that does not wreck the locality, instead it enhances it, makes the superficial obsolete and the feel of the novel, ground breaking.

It might suggest Nashville on the cover of the architect’s brochure, however there is more than the foundations and stepping stones of the Progressive that sit at the heart of the album, with its blend of the cinematic, of the towering screens that used to dot the American highway as famous films played out to teens and their dark interior cars, and the 1980s heyday dream; this suggestion of Nashville has its place but it cannot counteract the steam of beauty that comes out alongside it.

In tracks such as The Hound, Cortisol, Who Knew Me Better Than You, A Lover’s Quarrel and Red Horizon, Joseph Lekkas, Erica Whitney Wilkes, Benjamin Jason Douglas, Jason Springman and Rene Lambert, the combination of the feminine and the masculine introspection is as one, the same cry for help, for love, for a reason, is to be heard and in that softness a sense of the desperation abated can be maintained.

An Architect’s dream, a firm footing in which this new project can get underway, resilient and unyielding, this is the kind of musical building that fits in with its surroundings and stands out because it is born of symbolism; affirming and pleasing, Architecture is a new hope made real.

Palm Ghosts’ Architecture is out now via Ice Queen Records.

Ian D. Hall