Palisades

Louis Miceli (vocals) - Brandon Elgar (bass, vocals) - Matt Marshall (guitar) Xavier Adames (guitar, vocals) - Aaron Rosa (drums) When it came time to choose the artwork for their fourth album Erase the Pain, Palisades landed on an image of the Ouroboros: an ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail, speaking to an infinite cycle of destruction and rebirth. “The idea behind this whole album is that we all experience so much pain in life, but it’s always possible come out the other side and find happiness,” says Miceli. “You don’t have to be a prisoner to whatever’s happened in your past—you can choose to start over again, and become something new.” The most thrillingly intense release yet from Palisades, Erase the Pain is pure catharsis in album form. To fully capture their raw outpouring of emotion, the New Jersey-based band joined forces with Howard Benson (the super-producer known for his work with everyone from My Chemical Romance to Kelly Clarkson to Head Automatica). Recording at Benson’s studio in L.A., Palisades pushed their sound to bold new heights, delivering an album built on brutal but beautiful riffs, wildly thrashing rhythms, and soaring vocals that relentlessly channel the hurt and fury within each lyric. At the same time, Erase the Pain finds Palisades achieving a greater sophistication in their endlessly melodic take on post-hardcore. To that end, the band embedded the album with inventive flourishes like hip-hop-inspired beats, as well as intricate textures crafted with the help of Benson’s extensive collection of synths. In a departure from their 2017 self-titled effort (an album created with a host of cowriters), Palisades wrote Erase the Pain entirely on their own, purposely bringing an emotional transparency to every song. On the title track, that unrestrained honesty takes the form of a darkly charged yet majestic meditation on “being at the ultimate low point in your life, and feeling like there’s no way out,” according to Miceli. On “War,” with its throat-shredding vocals and pummeling riffs, Palisades look at the damaging impact of addiction. “It’s about how people get so wrapped up in the things they do to try to numb the pain, they end up destroying their lives and hurting everyone around them,” Miceli notes. And on “Patient,” Palisades slip into a starkly arranged and quietly epic ballad about a doomed relationship. “It’s about being with someone who keeps going back and forth on whether they want to be with you, and how that can feel like sitting in the doctor’s office and waiting to find out if you’re going to live or die,” says Miceli. Elsewhere on Erase the Pain, Palisades reflect on such matters as anxiety and depression (on “Run Away,” a beat-driven slow-burner penned by Elgar after suffering a panic attack on the road) and a friend’s thoughts of suicide (on “Fade,” a hauntingly tender number that the band is reimagining as a piano ballad for its remix version). But despite its share of heavy-hearted material, Erase the Pain also turns glorious on songs like “Fragile Bones,” an irresistibly defiant anthem for staying true to yourself. Throughout Erase the Pain, Palisades infuse each track with an unstoppable energy, revealing the powerful chemistry at the heart of the band. Friends since high school, Adames, Marshall, and Rosa played together in a series of bands over the years, and crossed paths with Miceli on tour in the early 2010s. Within a few months of that meeting, the four musicians teamed up to form Palisades and soon recorded their selffunded debut EP, which promptly landed them a deal with Rise Records. Making their full-length debut with 2013’s Outcasts, the band later completed their lineup with the addition of Elgar, who’d sold merch for Palisades back in their early days. For Palisades, the most memorable moments in the history of the band all center on their live performance, including gigs in far-away places like Russia and appearances alongside legends like Black Sabbath at Download Festival 2016. “The shows are always really heartwarming,” says Elgar. “We just do our best to connect with our fans while we’re up onstage, and after the show we get to hang out with everyone. A lot of times people will tell us that our records have gotten them through breakups or even depression, which is always such a great thing to hear—it’s the best feeling to feel like you’re helping someone with your music.” With the release of Erase the Pain, Palisades hope to deepen that connection with their fans, and encourage even more opening-up. “The anxiety of the world is so overwhelming these days, but it’s important to talk about what’s painful in your life, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with this album,” says Miceli. And as Marshall points out, the making of Erase the Pain was also incredibly therapeutic for the band itself. “This album helped me get through my own insecurities and depressive moments, and I hope it helps everyone else to realize that you don’t have to submit to whatever’s holding you down,” he says. “So if you’re going through some hard times and you’re doubting yourself, you can just scream along and sing along with all of us, and get back that confidence to take over the world.”