Palace – Rock and Roll Radio

7/10

Palaces 2018 effort Binary Music impressed me quite a bit. It didn’t make the cut to be one of my favourite albums of that year, but it was more genuin and hit oriented than most albums of the Frontiers bag, so of course Rock and Roll Radio intrigues me. And yeah, instantly within the opening a capella chorus of the opening title track, Palace strikes all the right notes. My god, this guy can write hits!

Yeah, I should mention, this is just one guy. Michael Palace playes all instruments, writes all songs, sings all vocals and is the producer of the whole thing. Seems like an ideal project in corona days! I must say he impresses me a lot, because he does everything really good as well. Throughout the album, hit after hit strikes just the right notes in the nice 80’s melodic rock vibe. Another great thing apart from the intruments and the great voice is that he knows how to produce really damn good as well. Most AOR bands use the same edgeless compressed modern sound these days, but this album really hits the 80’s vein and doesn’t feel stylized or false in any way, and there are no traces of modern day radio production. It’s just the way it should be, and it sounds great!

I guess the only downside is that the album stretches over too many songs. I remember thinking that Binary Music had a great and varied sound and that it had just the right lenght, but on the other hand it lacked the really great songs. This time it’s the somewhat other way around, the songs are really good, but the album starts to repeat itself after a while. Very well, as long as the songs are good, I shouldn’t complain. Rock and Roll Radio is definately among the years very best melodic rock albums, and the next time Palace releases an album, I won’t hesitate to check that one out as well!

Artist: Palace
Title: Rock and Roll Radio
Label: Frontiers
Date of release: 4/12-20
Time: 47,26
Rating: 7/10
Standout track: Way Up Here