Palisades - Erase The Pain

New Jersey born Palisades have now been brandishing their unique blend of post harcore/metal since forming in 2011. They signed to Rise Records shortly after forming and have to date released 3 albums with Erase The Pain being their 4th which was released on 28th December.

Probably the strangest date to release an album in the year, 28th December. Not sure why they chose this date but I think they may have shot themselves in the foot as potentially they’re going to miss out on annual “Best albums of the year” awards. For us, it’s not going to be an issue we’ll happily count it in our 2019 awards, assuming 50 other new albums don’t completely destroy this one.

Now the first single to come from Palisades - Erase The Pain was the very reason we decided to review this album in full, it blew us away! Literally, are heads almost exploded the riffs were just that heavy! The single we’re talking about it ‘War’. It’s just devastating in every way! Have a listen.

As you can tell from that short clip, the sound on this album is absolutely monstrous and if that song doesn’t give you goosebumps and make you want to break shit, you’re dead inside.

It’s also got some great elements of some bands we love here at RawMusic such as the brutal breakdowns found in Architects latest album Holy Hell, and more ethereal vocals found in new Bring Me The Horizon material. But, it also reminds us of early Underoath but with bigger production and definitely an angryer vocal. If you’re not familt with underoath, here’s a little taster...

A common theme we found throughout the record was quite a diverse mix of calm and chaos contrasting between in song on the album. This definitely helps to keep the album interesting as there’s nothing worse than an album that just doesn’t give you a break. Palisades have found a brilliant harmonious balance on this record.

Although saying that, some of the vocals do drift a bit towards the pop side of music, which really isn’t too noticable and the sheer power delivered vocally by singer Louis Miceli is really impressive, especially the visceral vocals, it takes practice talent and skill to pull that type of vocal off.

There are some tracks on the album like ‘Run Away’ and ghost which are more mellow rock tracks that doesn’t exactly make us want to go crazy, and to be honest if the entire album was comprised of these types of songs, we wouldn't be as excited as we are but it’s actually a good change of pace and Palisades have worked these types of tracks into the album really well, which is actually quite difficult to do.

If you compare Erase The Pain to their previous records, you can definitely see a mature development in their sound, and a very welcome one. Previous records were definitely closer to emo/scremo/pop than metal and way more generic a sound than what they’ve delivered with their new album.

If we have a quick listen to one of their older records you’ll see what we mean.

As you can tell, Palisades followed the more generic screamo/pop sound with previous material which is pretty much dead and has been for a while so it’s great to see they’ve pushed their sound forward.

Overall, Erase The Pain is honestly one of the heaviest records to be released in 2018 and could easily content with the likes of Architects and Monuments, and to be honest I know we made a comparison to BMTH, but this kind of wipes the floor with them. It kind of makes BMTH look a little bit like Elton John.