PALMS- Palms
It feels almost sacrilegious to say, but this, the combined effort of members of Deftones and Isis is… fine. Sure, some three minutes into opener ‘Future Warrior’, as Chino Moreno applies his unique croon to the post-rock rumble of bassist Jeff Caxide, drummer Aaron Harris, and guitarist Cliff Meyer, you get a taste of what might have been. But ultimately, it’s a tease. The track builds slowly, layers gently, and meanders politely from one brace of shimmering delay to another. It’s lush and warm but, like most of this album, goes nowhere. And with an average track length of over seven minutes, Palms repeatedly go there really really slowly. Given the pedigree in play, you hope for perfection, you hope for too much perhaps. The end result is a pleasant distraction but sadly less than the sum of its parts.