Photo Credit: Christoph Eisenmenger
The first thing that we noticed upon entering SLAY was the amount of Electric Callboy t-shirts on show, Future Palace had been on tour with the fellow Germans a couple of years ago and their music had obviously made a lasting impression. For us though we were there to hear ten tracks from September’s album Distortion, the band’s third. Towards the end of 2024 they played three shows in England causing huge disappointment for us further North but thankfully an announcement in November with more tour dates was much welcomed.
IMMERSE were the support for the UK tour dates and the Bristol metal band warmed the venue up nicely with a half-hour of metalcore that reminded us of Enter Shikari at times. With three album releases behind them since they were formed in 2018 – Suffer (2018), The Weight That Holds Me Here (2021) and 2023 release ENERGY – they had a decent back catalogue to choose from. Vocalist Tom Gardner puts everything into the performance as they run through a set that included 23/19 and Glass Houses, both personal favourites. There was even time to play new release Take It All as well as a brand new song in Nothing To It, the half-hour was over in a flash as the basement began to fill up. 7/10
Future Palace have been selling out most venues in their homeland of Germany and it won’t be long until the Berlin band are doing the same in the UK after tonight’s performance. As vocalist Maria Lessing lets rip from the word go kicking off the set with Malphas from the Distortion album, a song they played the last time they were in Glasgow. The first section of the set is filled with tracks we are hearing live for the first time, A Fool On A Devil’s Reign gets the first mosh pit of the night started while Uncontrolled hits you like a hammer. There is still time for our personal favourite Defeating Gravity in between the new songs though, this is post-hardcore metal at its finest here with all three band members putting everything into the performance, the crowd response is decent as well. Maria Lessing and Manuel Kohlert have stage platforms that they continuously make use of helping bring the live experience to the crowd whilst behind them Johannes Frenzel is battering away at the drums having the time of his life.
Rays Of Light and Amethyst are very intense but it is Decarabia that grabs the crowd, a track Maria describes as, “a song about a marriage between two depressed people .. Decarabia”. The lyrical content of Future Palace songs can be powerful to say the least, Maria writes from the heart about being stuck in an abusive relationship and everything surrounding that experience, for us that is the attraction of the band’s music, they are brutally honest. Another couple of songs from the Run album – Fever and Flames – are split by The Echoes Of Disparity, a track recorded alongside Charlie Rolfe of As Everything Unfolds fame. We hope that we can get to hear Maria and Charlie sing it together live one day, it is a truly excellent song and one of the best of the set tonight.
As the focus was mainly on the Distortion album for this tour we only got to hear one track from the 2020 debut album Escape – Lately being this. It was played acoustically with Maria on vocals and Manuel Kohlert on acoustic guitar in complete contrast to the Audio show in 2023 where Maria played the song by herself on keyboard, it was nice to take a few minutes out from the full-on hardcore metal though. The final four tracks of the show are the ones most fans were here for, Dreamstate is one of the new tracks we are hearing live for the first time tonight. The song has everything you could possibly want from a post-hardcore metal song, the lyrics grab you immediately, “happiness lasts just for seconds, the I feel just like a wreck again” sings Maria, the backing synth on this one is memorable. The final three tracks are from the 2022 album Run, Dead Inside now has over ten million streams on Spotify and brings the crowd to life for a wall of death … finally some movement! Heads Up is one of those songs that is always in the set but it is last one Paradise that brings an end to the night and what a way to end! The fans are screaming the lyrics back to the stage now and an excited few (me included) are bouncing around down the front. After the UK tour Future Palace head over to Dublin before moving on to mainland Europe for a few shows. Later in the year they head over the Atlantic for more shows in the USA and Canada proving that this band are very far reaching. Haste Ye Back Future Palace. 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
