Lindbergh Palace's Rollerskater EP is an architecturally rich release, which is no surprise given the namesake of the band : Lindbergh Palace was taken from the hotel name in Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums, a film about a wealthy, displaced family that comes together to bittersweet degrees. Rollerskater EP is in this mold: at times heavy and warmly familiar, and at times light and limn in its alienation---both modes often stacked on top of one another like the most delicate of houses.
Sweet and bitter is an apt description for Rollerskater---the gnarly techno textures are confidently preserved, and melded into pop sensibilities. It's rare that, in the short space of an EP, a listener experiences the narrative and minute arrangement of a full length album. But Rollerskater has narrative and bold vision on full display: The EP opens with two synth heavy, shiver spine tracks ('Rollerskater', 'Legendary'), then hits a perfect middle ground in 'West Coast', an airy, splendid downbeat track that hints some of the more sparse, elegiac textures that follow.
The album begins when : 'When I go out, after we've had a fight, I want to cry' and ends 'those days don't fade/they keep calling, calling me'. It's a credit to Lindbergh Palace that we don't know exactly what days they wish to recall: the light, or the dark. From their impeccable handling of both shades, we'll guess both will remain. It's telling that Lindbergh Palace sings of the impossibility of days fading away immediately after a track that laments that one day you won't be recognized. In its last moments, the EP seems to offer the possibility of redemption, but a single reading won't do this EP justice. What is clear is that the Rollerskater EP will remain in the crevices of our brains for a while, gliding in and out in of all the dark and light places.
We at Scotch & Murder can't get enough of Lindbergh Palace, so we've included a remix of their track 'Days Don't Fade', done by Johan Agebjorn and Le Prix:
