Review Summary: I'll never fly again, I'll hang up my wings
Christianity was never a defining factor for Thrice, throughout their career they’ve managed to draw inspiration from the things far beyond Dustin Kensrue’s beliefs like literature, poetry, morality of everyday life and of course love and devotion. And if there were some Biblical references it was all done with such grace and effectiveness of delivery that it didn’t feel like preaching at all. But now we know that when Thrice gets preachy we get Wake Up and Hold Up a Light.
The lyrical content is the first thing that bugged me, but I was too impressed by the variety and diverse sound of Palms to comprehend it completely. But over time it became more and more clear that there is no concept, and sadly no passion in the lyrics. It’s just the same message of peace, love and understanding over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I fully support the message, but Dustin used to write such powerful and passionate verses, and now they just appear to be weak and unrelatable. There are no heavy references like in Hold Fast Hope or Daedalus, no extreme sincerity of The Weight or Hurricane. There is not one line I can personally relate to on this album, and that’s really discouraging because many lyrics from Thrice’s past works are literally tattoo-worthy.
Palms definitely has good songs on it, some of which are great, couple are amazing, but there are also bad ones. Overall the album has more layered production and arrangements than the previous one, and really it’s not that hard to sound more varied than a mainstream-oriented ballads-turned-into-rock-songs To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere. And this is the first false impression you get about Palms, that it’s better than TBEISTBN. New album sounds rich, diverse and very unusual at times, with a heavy retro synths use and some new tricks we haven’t heard from Thrice before. Sometimes this record can easily be mistaken with any part of Alchemy Index, if only it didn’t lack ambition and sense of grandeur that Fire, Water, Air and Earth had. When you listen to Palms from front to back it seems atmospheric, but dull, beautiful, but hollow, complex, but underwhelming. And its predecessor is much more focused and dynamic, hitting hard at its peaks, and touching souls when it gets deep.
No guitar tremolos, spacey keys, cinematic strings or soulful vocals can’t change the fact that Palms is in fact underwhelming. We get retrowave anthem Only Us, amazing opening riff of The Grey, stunningly beautiful chorus in Just Breathe, Radiohead-esque Blood on Blood and heartbreaking closer Beyond the Pines for a price of not that good of an album. Because the sad truth is that the highs are not that high for the lows are too low on Palms.
