Album Review: Future Palace – Distortion (Arising Empire)

Alternative metal trio Future Palace are back with their third full-length album, ‘Distortion’, set for release on September 6th, 2024, via Arising Empire.

Who would have blamed Future Palace for taking it a bit easy here and turning in something more akin to ‘Run Part 2’? The success of that album and the spotlight it shined on this band can’t be understated, so it’s interesting to find Future Palace not sitting still or taking baby steps forward. Although it’s hardly surprising, after all, this is a band who almost always takes massive strides forward when it comes to their music. Even if some aspects end up polarising.

What doesn’t polarise in the slightest when it comes to this new album is the emotional intensity that oozes out of every corner of the release. Everyone will feel it even if it affects in different ways. Future Palace went through a lot to get this done, and the album address various mental illnesses and personal struggles. This is what gives the album depth, and once again, vocalist Maria Lessing delivers the lyrical content with so much passion.

However, this is just one part of what makes Future Palace so special (a bloody big part) and this album proves to be a refinement of so many other aspects of this band. This is Future Palace at their most melodic, at their heaviest, at their most experimental, at their most challenging, and at their most accessible. Across the eleven tracks, an array of creative sounds and ideas can be found, ensuring that Distortion is remarkably memorable.

It’s fair to say that they couldn’t have started off the album in any less of a bombastic way, dropping the magnificently anthemic Uncontrolled (those harsh vocals are immense) and the exciting darkwave aspects of Malphas. Two immediate Future Palace hits that the fanbase will love for many more years to come.

Although that could certainly apply to much more of the album and it’s difficult to not be impressed by the dramatic vocal layering of Panic Paralysis and the maddening blend of manic heaviness and orchestral grandeur that can be found within The Echoes of Disparity. A track that features Charlie Rolfe of As Everything Unfolds.

Future Palace have learned so much and this section of the album proudly displays their evolving sound. Even as they set the senses aflame with a synth-infused and melody-laced banger like Dreamstate. The sound of a band comfortably finding their place in the alternative, rock, and metal scene.

As good as that track is, it’s the following Decarabia that takes the anthemic first place position with its incredible chorus and relatability. Here, Future Palace dedicate the song to the relationships of people who are suffering from mental illnesses. It’s such an important piece of the Distortion makeup and shouldn’t be ignored as so much of their passion comes from this unflinching look at the reality of mental illnesses and personal struggles. All of which is front and centre across the entirety of the album. At no stage does that impact dimmish.

Keeping things exciting, interesting, and undeniably creative, it’s captivating banger after banger with the hyperactivity of In Too Deep, the warped melodious strength of Rays of Light, A Fool on a Devil’s Reins with its class heavy breakdown, and the brash weirdness of They Take What. While there are moments in these tracks that don’t necessarily hit, this is still another section of the album that thrills.

Future Palace have thrown their all into this and it pays off. By time the excellence of Amethyst arrives, a dazzling finale that has an imposing vibe and a chorus that powers up, absolutely no-one will be in any doubt that Future Palace have hit another incredible high with this new release.

Future Palace – Distortion Track Listing:

1. Uncontrolled
2. Malphas
3. Panic Paralysis
4. The Echoes of Disparity (ft. Charlie Rolfe)
5. Dreamstate
6. Decarabia
7. In Too Deep
8. Rays of Light
9. A Fool on a Devil’s Reins
10. They Take What They Want
11. Amethyst

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