Palehound – ‘Eye on The Bat’ album review: limp lyricism saved by some brilliant guitar playing
Eye on The Bat is the latest release from Palehound, their first since 2019’s Black Friday. Singer-songwriter El Kempner said in a press release that this record was going to be different from their previous output, explaining: “In the past, I’ve taken myself really seriously in the studio, and I’ve ended up with really serious sounding records.”
Whereas this one is an anthology of break-up anthems, which is why Kempner says they wanted to sound raw, like “feeling very much in control, and out of control, at the same time.” With that in mind, Eye on The Bat employs the witty lyricism and so-called ‘journal-rock’ stylings of Kempner, but lacks the finesse that made 2015’s Dry Food so great.
When the diaristic tone works, it’s glorious and confessional, like on opener ‘Good Sex’. Kempner surprises their lover with lingerie, only to be abandoned for an hour while they chat on the phone. Our protagonists sits in wait, straps digging into skin as they feel increasingly silly – “The wire and the clasps had dug, canals and dried water ducts, like a sex map of my chest.”
The resulting awkwardness, that sensation of being entirely too preoccupied with your body while feeling totally outside of it, comes off as real and raw. The confession on lead single ‘The Clutch’ shares that same honesty: “I didn’t mean to hurt you, you didn’t mean to show me how.”
However, when their lyrical style doesn’t work, it falls increasingly flat. Motifs are lazily repeated and start to cloy – blood, cats, and laundromats are all metaphorical stand-ins for something that would benefit from the straight-talking treatment Kempner shows they’re capable of on tracks like ‘My Evil’: “I’ve become the person I’d wanna punch in the face, if they ever treated you this way.”
Instead, we get a cheap rhyme (“our cat licking his ass and looking confused, and your face contorting with amuse”) on ‘Good Sex’ that takes away from the impact of the awkward scene created before that line. Cats (and deer) rear their heads again on ‘Independence Day,’ with the deer being run over and the cat running under a bed to hide. Ultimately, it just feels like the metaphors for a failed relationship are too ham-fisted on this album.
A good guitar will cover a multitude of sins though, and Kempner’s flair for fast-paced, urgent playing soars, particularly on standouts ‘U Want It U Got It’ and ‘Route 22’. The former is intriguing, taking on an electric, animated sound, the latter features an injection of country twang and a fastidious bassline. Equally, the gutsy bass that drives ‘The Clutch’ is divine, raucous stuff from Larz Brogan.
Eye on The Bat is a brilliant love letter to domesticity, creating a world that feels incredibly familiar to Kempner, who uses their tangible surroundings as a fitting backdrop to their romantic frustrations – “in that tiny dusty living room, full of candy wrappers and dirty shoes.”
The repetitive themes can be a little trying, but maybe that’s a message in itself – sometimes you have to remind yourself why someone isn’t good for you over and over, until it sinks in. In that sense, the album achieves its aim, sounding like someone reading a love-sick twenty-somethings journal while playing fast-paced indie rock.
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