PALES — Piece of Meat / 1518

Rock

NO WAVE AT SEA

2024

PALES has released one of the most intense performance videos I’ve seen, and the two singles teasing the upcoming EP are absolute fire.

Instagram | Bandcamp | Youtube

I’d like to introduce you to PALES. I included one of these songs in the Friday playlist last week, but this video is another level. Just hit play. These songs have teeth:

The first song in that video, “Piece of Meat”, was released a couple of weeks ago, and it stopped me in my tracks when I heard it. It reminds me of Honeyglaze’s Don’t, and the intensity of the live recordings from The None, with the aggressive riffs of Rage Against the Machine. What an absolute beast of a song. Singer Célia Souarit is a hell of a performer.

Subscribe Form

The other song, “1518”, is a sinister and propulsive dance-punk track that was released in April of this year. Those two songs together make a mean little combo and a killer introduction to PALES.

The band is from Strasbourg, France, and they have released two singles in the leadup to an EP early next year. They’ve been releasing music and refining their sound since 2021, and released their debut album In Our Hands? in 2022. Even though it’s only 5 songs, there’s a broad range on there, from the instrumental “Nothing”, to the 12-minute post-rock opera “Beat It“. The standout for me is “Trippy Season”, which filters a U2-style arpeggio and a post-punk lens with a hint of psychedelia that gets more sinister as it progresses:

Their earliest release is “Get Out” from 2021, a relentless and kinetic song that borrows from early Interpol, with a growling bassline, fierce drumming and a bright guitar line:

It’s interesting to see the band’s progression, as Souarit moves away from singing and toward more aggressive spoken-word, fury-filled delivery. The intensity of the band has definitely ratcheted up with each release, and they have a fully distinct sound to them that I can’t wait to hear more of.