Eagle Winged Palace – Hand of Doom EP
This is something of a spectral take on the Gothic folk mini-genre, crammed full of the sort of Brothers Grimm meets the darkest of American folk tales kind of imagery which we’ve come to expect from this sort of thing. I’ve pigeonholed it fairly mercilessly there, but I don’t mean to imply that you can nail this EP to the mast with a single glib sentence, because there is more to it than that.
It’s only four songs long and each song has its own character. The first track, Hand of Doom, perhaps fits the above description the neatest, but subsequently each track deviates from this model in its own little way. The Ballad of the Red-Legged Hawk’s Fountain is dominated by a wonderful female vocal, which teases with sweetness, but remains just that little bit elusive. The song itself has something of a folk-soul lullaby feel to it, which suits the overall mood of the album: lovely, but slightly unnerving at times.
Mansion on the Hill changes the game again slightly, being the poppiest of the songs, with an almost jaunty little piano riff twinkling away behind the drifting mist of ghostly vocals. It is, as with the rest of the EP, a familiar sound, but one which I like and it still seems to me to retain a pretty solid character of its own. As beginnings go, this strikes me as a very promising one, and with a full album on the way, I am confident we’ll be hearing more of these guys quite soon.
Eagle Winged Palace – Mansion on the Hill
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I like this song. It has a weird structure, doesn’t it? The fiddle, which sounds very nice, doesn’t come in until the song’s nearly over (2:30) and then the spectral organ comes out of nowhere to carry us home. It’s like the different parts were recorded independently and then mixed together afterward. Still, it works for me.
Hey, so I checked their myspace and you forgot to mention that the band’s name begins with lower-case letters and is surrounded by three sets of parentheses, i.e., (((eagle winged palace))). I know you didn’t mean to insult them by capitalizing the letters and leaving out the parentheses, but you really should try harder to pay attention in the future.
I am not typing out band names with stupid fucking punctuation. This is a blanket policy, sorry. Besides, if it meant that much to them, why is it written normally on their EP cover?
Musically, I’m with you, though. Nicely unusual structures and a well-judged sway from ghostly to lovely and back again.
(Most parts of songs are recorded separately and mixed together afterwards. Did you mean written separately?)
Anyway, you know I don’t like bands using silly fucking punctuation, and you know it fine well. Stop stirring.
I’m really enjoying the other two tunes on their myspace, Hand of Doom and By God Lets Make Sure… Actually, I made the mistake of listening to The Mansion of the Hill for the first time through my crummy laptop speakers, and now that I’ve heard it a couple of times on good earphones the fiddle and organ seem much better integrated than they did at first. They’re there all along, but very subtle. This gets better and better with repeated listens.
I was joking. Christ. And I’d appreciate it if from now on you refer to me as follows: “c’-ampersand-B. Please be careful to include the hyphens, to spell-out “ampersand,” and to capitalize “B” while leaving “c” in lower case but with one double-quotation mark and one single. And then follow it with two spaces.
Well there is an album soon. I’m definitely looking forward to it.
no worries, about the ((( – ))) it’s not officially part of the band name. it’s a joke from Cashew, it’s supposed to be “wings”, anyhow…thanks for the review. we really appreciate you listening to the EP.
cheers,
Uncle Rhea
Hi Uncle Rhea. This stuff sounds great. Just picked up the EP off eMusic and I’m definitely looking forward to the album. Is that you singing on By God Lets Make Sure…? Whoever it is she has a gorgeous voice.
hi campfire & battlefields. thanks for the sweet compliments. i sing lead on Red Hawk. Mimi sings lead on By God… i will pass along your kudos, if she hasn’t already come by and read through the post
if you’re looking at our main promo pic, she is the blonde in the brown dress sitting to Cashew’s right, Sterling is to the left of her, Gelfling is behind Sterl and I’m in yellow.
cheers
My goodness. That’s some picture. Shame y’all weren’t looking your best that day. ;^>
Glad to see C&B has held the flirting staff aloft while our fearless leader was enroute!
You can always count on me.
I confess I did look at that picture and think ‘Fucking hell, sucks to be that bloke. Bet they’re always talking about kittens and periods and stuff.’
Then again, being in a band with four smoking hot babes can’t be all that depressing, can it. Lucky bastard. All I get is Bart, Tom and bloody Dylan. It doesn’t seem fair.
OH, and Tart and Shonagh. At least there are some hotties in the Toadosphere.
I bet Becky’s hot too. Anyone with a mouse foetus brain spoon must rock. And Little Bear will always do in a pinch.
ha! yeah, i wouldn’t want to be in Cashew’s shoes, either!
Someone shake Matthew and wake him, he’s being nice to me again… we mustn’t let him get so sleep deprived.
Erm can I hedge by claiming that I was being ironic?