PALACE
“Reckless Heart”
Album Review by Iron Mathew

10/10

11/10

Palace are a melodic rock band from Sweden founded by singer/songwriter/guitarist Michael Palace in 2016, the band releasing five albums to date – ‘Master Of The Universe’ (2016), ‘Binary Music’ (2018), ‘Rock And Roll Radio’ (2020), ‘One 4 The Road’ (2022), and ‘Reckless Heart’…

…emerging in 2024 to maintain an incredible run of new material every two years! Spooky, highly coincidental, or by Palace’s immaculate design, I ain’t sure! But what I am sure of, the band perfectly recreate the essence of eighties rock, Palace founder Michael Palace commenting “it was time to go back to the roots and finally make that true ’80’s AOR album that I’ve dreamt of creating since I started Palace”. And boy has he succeeded, every song on offer oozing the pulsating sound of bands such as Boston, FM and Journey – and across forty four minutes and eleven songs Palace deliver top shelf melodic rock, the title song ‘Reckless Heart’ setting the new album on its glorious way. Full of energy and eighties pizzazz, ‘Reckless Heart’ (the song) stands tall, very tall. Boasting arena rock status, the bombastic nature here hits hard with every listener everywhere sitting up to take notice of a fantastic opening salvo! And from fantastic to terrific in the blink of an eye, ‘The Widow’s Web’ is a heart pounding, pulse racing slab of AOR fuelled melodic rock – the old school sound fucking amazing! I was a teenager during the eighties and know exactly the AOR come melodic rock come arena rock sound – have Palace just travelled here form the mid eighties in a “flux capacitor” fitted DeLorean sports car at eighty-eight miles an hour! Maybe, just maybe!

Some may call ‘Reckless Heart’ (the album) a retro album, which is kinda true, but it’s also paying homage to one of the greatest eras in rock history – rock evolution too! And I’m fucking loving it – Palace striding on with more punch than the two previous songs put together! And with increased pace too, for ‘Back In Your Arms’ marches on with a “metal gallop” and one helluva sing a long-able chorus – every listener, fan, follower and (ultimately) concert goer enthusiastically singing “To be back in your arms again, It’s a long way back into your arms, To be back in your arms again, Can you find me a place in your heart, Is there still any room in your arms, Back in your arms”. Stunning stuff from the Swedish singer/songwriter – the upbeat, high energy rock roaring on with ‘Girl Is An Angel’. Featuring a bolder, harder rock sound than everything heard so far, ‘Girl Is An Angel’ maintains the sensational eighties rock aura – I feel like if I close my eyes the last forty years will disappear and it’ll be nineteen eighty-four all over again! And I’ll be fourteen and not the fifty-four year old rocker I am today – I can wish can’t I? And if you wished for the ultimate eighties sounding rock album, your wish has just come true, ‘Reckless Heart’ is the album for you – ‘You Give Me A Reason To Live’ strolling in with the biggest rock swagger imaginable! A rock swagger that bears more than just a passing resemblance to the heart pounding, pulse racing ‘Reason To Live’ by legendary American rockers Kiss (off the bands 1987 album ‘Crazy Nights’). And not just because of the similar title either – the anthemic and catchy sing a long chorus, the high energy level and tremendous punch is a match if not better than the aforementioned ‘Reason To Live’. So come on everyone, let’s have another sing along “You give me a reason to live, You give me the love that no one else can give, You give me a reason to wake up everyday, I know this feeling won’t fade away”. Even more stunning than ‘Back In Your Arms’.

And I know what feeling won’t fade away, the heavenly feeling from listening to a fucking fantastic rock album – an album that now requires us to board the DeLorean and return to the mid eighties once again! ‘Back To ’85’ must be one of the most apt song titles ever, ’cause it does exactly what it says! Nineteen eighty-five may be four decades ago, but Palace bring it to the here and now, ‘Back To ’85’ a glorious anthem to a bygone era. And with an immense upturn in energy and pizzazz too, the hard rocking nature punching much harder than American heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson in his prime – which incidentally was from ’85 to ’89 when he became world champion, winning every one of his first thirty seven professional fights! Thirty three of them by knock-out! An incredible seventeen in just the first round! And have Palace entered the running for Album Of The Year? Damn right they have, ‘Reckless Heart’ (the album) marching on with the ground shuddering ‘For The Love’ – the amount of force emanating from ‘For The Love’ shaking buildings and wobbling walls! And setting off volcanoes too, the band an emphatic force of nature, wreaking havoc wherever the album is played! And if the title ‘Turn This Car Around’ refers to turning the Delorean around and heading back to the present – you can just forget it! I wanna stay here in the eighties, it’s where I grew up making some of my fondest “coming of age” memories, along with a burgeoning rock (and metal) music collection! The eighties were a time for the emergence of many of rock’s greatest bands, a time I was a part of and wouldn’t ever want to change – Palace returning me to my (much) younger days!

The weight of rock on offer throughout ‘Reckless Heart’ (the album) has been nothing short of sensational, and with three songs still to come, I may have to consult my Thesaurus for more superlatives to describe them! ‘Cause the dazzling display continues to shine just as brightly as it did when it opened with ‘Reckless Heart’ (the song) – ‘Weightless’ walking across the land with shoulders back and head held high, oozing a commanding “listen to me” persona! And listen you will, for the incredible infectious level that’s run through every song on offer since it began, has simply gotten stronger and stronger – ‘Reckless Heart’ (the album) fielding a force greater than the Earth’s gravitational pull! And we all know how strong that is – it’s what stops us from falling off the fucking planet! To say Palace have moved me, is probably the biggest understatement of the year so far, maybe even the last ten years, the bands new album moving me to a state of euphoria! Party rock makes an appearance courtesy of ‘Move Me’, Palace setting the air alight with a glorious anthem that’s surely gonna get any party started – even the sleepiest and most stale parties are gonna quickly crumble under the power driven brand of rock on show right now! So feel free to get up on the dance floor and strut your stuff like it’s a Saturday night and your name’s Tony Manero! And as an old saying goes “all good things come to an end”, and so does this album – but it’s an album that deserves a permanent place in everyone’s playlists and collections, ’cause I guarantee your love for ‘Reckless Heart’ (the album) will grow stronger by the day! And now to the albums final song ‘Stronger By The Day’, a song that maintains the albums relentless melodic rock avalanche – an avalanche that’s been elegant, majestic and lavish right from minute one to the very last second!

Overall, a fabulous album of heavy hitting hard rock come AOR, ‘Reckless Heart’ is a hundred percent loveable, immensely infectious and quite rightly deserves its eleven out of ten rating.

TRACKLIST

Reckless Heart
The Widow’s Web
Back In Your Arms
Girl Is An Angel
You Give Me A Reason To Live
Back To ‘85
For The Love
Turn This Car Around
Weightless
Move Me
Stronger By The Day

https://www.facebook.com/palacesweden

This review is the property of Iron Mathew and Metal Gods TV. It is strictly prohibited to copy any part of this review, unless you have both of the parties’ permission, or are the band/record label/PR company in question. Failure to adhere to these instructions will be considered as Plagiarism and you will be reported to the appropriate authorities

---