Winter Palace – Eponymous debut EP review

Winter Palace from Copenhagen in Denmark recently released their debut EP which emerged with the eponymous title.

A four track EP which meanders across the Scandinavian landscape opening with Boys In The Park that contains twists of mangled bluegrass which are unfolded to release a vocal extravaganza on which the credibility of Winter Palace lays. No pressure on Line Pollas at all: To my mind; A very brave introduction worthy of acknowledgement.

Next, Hemingway. I somehow so often get the feeling that the heart and soul of Denmark lies within The Faroe Islands and Greenland rather than the landmass to the North of Germany and Winter Palace cements that thought process further. As though a glacier on a journey to the ocean the music is restrained yet full of: Creaks; Groans and; Splits, which have sculpted geology for millennia. There is a sentient power that lies therein.

Me and Julia is a well handled track, with an undercurrent of the deft exponent, Eva Cassidy. Although Line is a quality singer and Martin Stender an equally able composer, the pair are of a different genre. However, this is a debut EP from a band only six months old so on the basis of this, do as I do. Ignore it as a direction not well travelled and whilst handled adequately not the finest hour of Winter Palace. There is nothing wrong with giving it a go and as fair as go as Dido ever managed.

Concluding with Drum Beats, no, that wasn’t a description, rather, a title. This sees Winter Palace testing out a new territory of lighter textures to the two openers and whilst it has some power and interesting creativity, I prefer the band to pursue the direction of the two openers and in particular Hemingway. Here I find Winter Palace have their strongest sound and somewhere I would be more than happy to sit for an LP.

I look forward to hearing how Winter Palace develop over the coming year as from scratch to a fine and well produced debut EP within but a matter of months – wow….. These are talented musical creators.

My criticisms here were votes of confidence as this is an out-fit deserving of support and I would advise many new bands take this as a template for progression. The next step for Winter Palace is to transpose the core duo to a consistent  live performance band whilst identifying the core metrics.

Winter Palace – EP – Winter Palace is available on iTunes*

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