Over the past three years or so, I’ve written a bit about the Copenhagen, Denmark-based electro pop duo Palace Winter, and as you may recall, the act, which is comprised of Australian-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter Carl Coleman and Danish-born and-based producer and classically trained pianist Caspar Hesselager can trace their origins to a mutual appreciation for each other’s writing styles and a familiarity with each other’s work through their involvement in a number of different projects individually — and of course, the duo were encouraged to start writing material together.
2015 saw the release of their debut single, which followed-up with 2016’s debut EP Medication and their full-length debut Waiting for the World to Turn, all of which were released through Copenhagen-based label Tambourhinoceros to critical applause from the likes of The Guardian, NME, The Line of Best Fit, and airplay from KCRW, KEXP, Norway’s P3, Denmark’s P6, as well as by BBC Radio personalities Guy Garvey, Lauren Laverne and Tom Ravenscroft. Oh, and let’s not forget, they have a Hype Machine #1 under their belts. Adding to a growing profile, they’ve opened for Noel Gallagher, played sets on the European festival circuit, including Meltdown Festival curated by the aforementioned Guy Garvey, Roskilde Festival, Green Man Festival, Sziget Festival, Latitude Festival and Secret Garden Party among others.
Building upon a rapidly growing internationally recognized profile, the members of the Danish pop act will be releasing their sophomore album Nowadays on May 4, 2018 — and interestingly enough, album single “Empire” found the band pairing breezy, melodic and radio friendly pop with mark darker thematic concerns — in particular, the song focused on the loss of innocence and the tough, and sobering life lessons of adulthood, with the recognition of the freedom and power of taking charge of your life. The album’s latest single “Come Back (Left Behind)” will further cement the band’s reputation for incredibly upbeat and anthemic radio friendly pop that sounds decidedly inspired by buoyant, 80s synth pop but with darker lyrical and thematic concerns; in fact, as the duo note, the song focuses on the challenges of anxiety, of coming to terms with the loss of a lover, whose ghost seems to pervasively linger, and the feeling as though you’ll never escape the grief. As Carl Coleman explains, the song is “loosely inspired by the recent horror film The Witch. I loved the imagery in that movie and the idea that there was some sort of unknown darkness hidden in the woods. I wanted to merge that imagery with something personal and that’s where the themes of grief and yearning came up”,
Coleman adds that the song finds the duo moving the focus away from the acoustic guitar to try to get the drive from somewhere else like the piano lines and the jagged 12-string electric, and while being propulsive and downright danceable, the song sounds as though it could have been released in 1985 or so.
