The Gilded Palace of Sin

You break our hearts, we'll tear yours out

(Central Control)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

What to expect from a band that calls themselves The Gilded Palace of Sin?  Unabashed Gram Parsons worship?  Or maybe, based on the album cover, some classic noir?  The answers:  not at all and yes, but also a whole lot more.  To further sabotage any pigeonholing efforts, they lead with a curveball: the sparse, haunting “For when we forget.”  A simple melody goes a long way on the track, which already feels like it’s told a story before the vocals even kick in.  At that point, it seems a safe bet that the fabulously titled You break our hearts, we’ll tear yours out will be a mellow-mannered and melancholy album.

By the time they hit the third track, though (“Mean Old Jack”), the Palace has transformed into the sort of band that could be stomping the boards of your local roadhouse.  “Mean Old Jack” is the sort of story-song that could have wound up on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ brilliant Murder Ballads – “Mean old Jack he was fifty five / Had sixteen children and fourteen wives / Connubial bliss turned to bloody knives / And he hid them in the basement.”  Former Bad Seed Barry Adamson is the Gilded Palace’s label boss and also did some production work on the album, so it’s understandable that there are some echoes.  The trio chomp into the song with a muscular gusto not much hinted at in the album’s opening tracks.  For all its bloody fun, though, “Mean Old Jack” does expose the twin Achilles heels of The Gilded Palace of Sin:  they need to be more ruthless with editing and track runtimes, and they need to avoid flying too close to the Cave sun, as Pete Phythian clearly isn’t in Cave’s universe as a vocalist or as a dominating/charismatic/chilling narrative presence.  And, really, what do you expect from a guy on his debut record?

Their press release suggests that they could have been a house band for Deadwood, and that’s the rare occasion of a press release hitting the nail on the head without hyperbole.  There’s a decidedly Wild Western twist to some of their sound, like the menacing “There is no evil, there is no good” – and perhaps also channeled by the open expanses they pursue through diverse instrumentation (sometimes too diverse; seriously, lose the chimes in the otherwise compelling “Bones of the Saints”).  The flipside of the occasional overstuffed runtime is that there are also a few perfectly patient instrumental builds and transitions.

Just when You break our hearts seems to be on the verge of becoming predictable, the trio shifts directions, like with the atmospheric one-two punch of “Bones of the Saints” and “Wedding Rice” late in the album.Some early reviews made it seem like The Gilded Palace of Sin would be torch carriers for Cave or even Tom Waits, but those seem surely to be the wrong directions.  The heights of You break our hearts make a strong case for going their own way.