Palberta – Palbertha5000 – It really is impossible to not like Palberta, to not share in the delight they obviously have when they make their music, and there is a delight, it is delightful, you feel this radiant delight coming from their songs, coming off the songs and infecting everything in such a positively uplifting way. This is New York good (as Iggy Pop once said, no hang on, that was New York pissed, he said he was “New York Pissed” in that song about what a shithead Moby was). There’s something in the way these Palberta songs never take the obvious route, the way they do things that almost sounds naive when they’re  very obviously not – the true art of pop  The construction is clever, they paint it all in a slightly different way and they really don’t sound like anyone else now (not that they really ever did). How can you not love the way The Cow moves before you get the warning not to step too close. And Fragile Place moves along is a rather thrilling way, it all does really and just when you might have thought you had Palberta worked out they’re throwing you a curveball or two.  hey makes you skip, Corner Store is just beautiful, it glows, you imagine the corner store all bright and inviting, all of their songs are bright and inviting, all of it is, never does it drop, never does anything feel like just another song, never… never to go… 

They say “while punk music was our first love, pop music has become our fixation”, but this is proper punk, this is what it was always supposed to be, this is one of the ways it was always supposed to go, this is the proper spirit of punk rock and doing it your own sweet way and doing it so damn well, and yes you can single it like you sing along to proper good pop music that gets stuck in your head in all the right ways. The delight is all over everyone’s face, all over her shoes, in her hair, all over everyone’s, and yes it is still  defiantly Palberta. All Over My Face has a touch of The Slits about it, that was meant as high compliment,  

Two years removed from their triumphant 2018 LP Roach Going Down, which Pitchfork described as “a leap to another level” from the beloved NYC trio, Palberta are returning to deliver their clear-eyed fifth album, ‘Palberta5000,’ a collection of adventurous, hyper-melodic songs that will excite their devoted following while welcoming new fans along for the ride. While long heralded as one of the most original and idiosyncratic bands in the East Coast DIY scene, earning regular comparisons to ESG, Captain Beefheart (Pitchfork) and CAN (FADER), on ‘Palberta5000,’ Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser max out traditional pop forms—creating hits that catch in listeners’ brains while blowing the genre out into lush, kinetic extensions that morph into absurdist outros and haptic breakdowns—to create their own hardcore style of popular music. In doing so, they have made their most accessible album by a far measure—one that is bursting at the seams with vocal hooks and exuberant playing.

‘Palberta5000’ was recorded with Matt Labozza (PALM, Shimmer), whose Peekskill, New York, studio is located in the original home and family lamp-store of Paul Reuben (Pee Wee Herman). Fueled by carrots, celery, radishes, and peanut-butter-and-jelly bagels, they diligently tracked ‘Palberta5000’s well-rehearsed songs in four days, never putting down more than three takes. Labozza’s recording and mix capture the band’s rollicking instrumentation and vocal precision.

They do rather sound like peanut-butter-and-jelly bagels, that’s jam to you and me of course, they do sound like a peanut butter and jam butty, no, they very much sound like they’re from New York and this does sound like peanut-butter-and-jelly bagels.  At times they’re perfectly jagged, at times deliciously precise, at time they really are a pop band, they remind me why I still love those Charlies Angels records we put out that the rest of you hated so much. They sound a bit (a lot) like that Schulte/Eriksson as well, that was just for the sake of clarity, yes indeed, lots of things to like on Palberta5000

Hey look, I was looking forward to this one,  I knew I was right to do so, they did good again, there’s lots to unwrap here, Palberta done good good good, is that bit going off and things? Good good good, peanut butter and jelly good, their best yet…  (sw)

Here’s the Bandcamp, there’s the Facebook

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“This is our 8th album and 8th year as a band this album is a celebration of our friendship and we’re so excited to share this momentous occasion with you all”