Palehound - Kitchens 7"

Palehound aren't stopping anytime soon. Here's a look at their new 7 inch "Kitchens" on Exploding In Sound Records, reviewed by Nicole Barnhart.

The twenty-year-cycle of fashion is a real deal – our modernity of 2014 battles with constant blasts from the past. Yeah, now we have iPhones, but somehow, they don’t seem to fill the void left behind by good Nickelodeon cartoons and a fully-banded Nirvana.

Nostalgia isn’t good enough for Palehound – they aren’t content to let the golden days of grunge rest in the past. Nineteen year old lead singer Ellen Kempner is an expert at crafting the feel of the decade she was born in – their Kitchen 7” sounds like a hidden gem you’d find at a cool vintage store, not a production that just dropped this month.

The album contains two songs: the bass-driven waltz “Holiest” where Kempner sings, “I’m the holiest of all your parts/I’m licking out your loneliness and starving all your crops,” and the grooving, sillier “Pay No Mind,” which fades out in an atmospheric collision of the best kind. The songs are short, both clocking in at 3 minutes, but still pack a punch.

This album is for everyone who still longs for the pre-“Why Can’t I” Liz Phair days; for lo-fi junkies; for Waxatchee and P.S. Eliot fans; for anyone who is simply open to welcoming some good girl garage punk into their day. Palehound boasts a packed schedule of tour dates – good news for a generation still hungering for the sounds of the past.