It’s been a hot minute since we heard from Palehound, the journal-rock project from one-time Allston resident El Kempner. But with word of a new album and a wonderfully noisy new single, it’s pretty much impossible this week to not hear Palehound. The name of the record is called Eye On The Bat, the follow-up to 2019’s Black Friday, due out July 14 via Polyvinyl Record Co. And the single is an instant SOTY contender, released yesterday (April 27), a swirling dose of tension bliss titled “The Clutch.”
“‘The Clutch’ is the very first song I wrote for this album, back in 2020 right when lockdown started,” says Kempner. “I had been on a tour that was sliced in half by the onset of the pandemic and we had to apocalypse road trip back to New York across the country from Oregon, where our next show had been scheduled for. While that was happening, I was also having a triggering romantic experience with somebody I didn’t know too well, and by the time I got home my whole body seemed to be spinning in turmoil. Writing and producing this song grounded me and helped me process a new future and self that I hadn’t anticipated.”
The track arrives with a modern-retro styled video that captures its intensity, co-directed by Brittany Reeber and Adam Kolodny.
“Adam, El, and I wanted to create something that captured the charged, raw drive of the song,” says Reeber. “Inspired by slick, visceral performance videos of the early-’00s, we got ourselves the biggest space we could find and Adam created a visual aesthetic with the circular track, rotating head and alternating key lights that ultimately build (along with the band’s electric performance) to an epic and dizzying climax.”
Welcome back, Palehound.
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