Distortion, the new album from FUTURE PALACE is a feast of racing brutality and melodic creativity. We spoke to vocalist Maria Lessing and were enlightened on the unique journey from start to finish of the album; from the bookending medical issues, to the heighten skillset and experience on the way to making it.
The album is brimming with energy, and that might be in part due to its intense turnaround time. “Well, the process was much, much shorter than normal, and the in between time [between writing and recording] was the shortest we’ve ever had, because we had to delay the studio appointments due to some health issues with me,” Maria explains. She goes on, “first of all, I started very late with the demo, so I was very, very burnt out. Then I got an infected wisdom tooth and had to get in surgery. Fun fact, tomorrow I get another surgery! So, it just ends how it started – this album should have been called wisdom tooth instead of Distortion. And so, yeah, it was a very tight timetable.”
FUTURE PALACE hasn’t exactly slowed down in the meantime between getting the record together. “We just did all the music videos right after started playing festivals. So, I think we finished the process of everything [for the album] in like April or something. Then we worked on merch and everything. So, the process was pretty long [but] now it’s being released already, so it feels like it just happened really quick.”
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While the results have been highly dynamic and bursting with vibrancy and groove, it’s been a hard process to get Distortion to completion. “To me, it was too chaotic,” Maria laughs, “I mean, I am chaotic, I do have a chaotic life in general. It was very stressful and challenging, I would say, because I just had to make it happen, no matter the circumstances. Didn’t matter if I had no power, if I had no time and no health; we had to somehow make it work, or it would have not worked with the release date it is now. To sum it up, I’m just happy it worked.”
While the run to making Distortion was turbulent, there were still some upsides. “It was still nice to go back to songwriting after a while, because Run was released in 2022, so we haven’t done songwriting much since, and it felt kind of nice to be forced to do some songwriting. It helped me a lot to process how I felt these past years; process how I actually feel with touring and being a live musician now, and with everything growing and my life changing so much. It was a bit of therapy for me, even though it was squished in.”
It’s pretty obvious that Distortion has a clear-cut message about mental health, but tackled from a variety of different perspectives. “The entire album is pretty much all about mental health,” Maria clarifies, “and it’s also about different kind of mental health disorders. That was important to me, to point out the differences, that not only one, but a few more can mess up your life or your reality. And I also put some spotlight on illnesses that I don’t even have myself, like narcissism and how could maybe relate to some things in our world happening. And then The Echoes Of Disparity doesn’t really have anything to do with distorted views. Maybe you could interpret the way some people treat women – that that could also come from mental illness or some lack of self-confidence, you just don’t know. But I wanted to only write songs that mean something to me with this album. There’s no meaningless song there for me, all the songs are very important and very honest.”
The record has a huge variety in sounds, from the way the instrumentals have expanded, to the overall range of vocal styles Maria plays with. “I try to do a bit more of like speech singing, or like rapping, if you want to say so, it just felt like it was fitting the songs,” she explains, “And I just wanted to try it out, because I think it’s boring to repeat the same things. I think one vocal coach once said, ‘it’s a one trick pony thing when you keep doing same thing’. And I’m naturally I’m not really one trick pony person! I want to challenge myself a lot, I don’t want to get bored myself with things. And with Run, I just started screaming, for example, and now with Distortion, I’ve screamed for a few years now and gained some life experience.”
While most of these experiences eventually lead somewhere positive, the initial hardship of some of them wasn’t pleasant, we discovered. “I messed up my voice a lot live, and was very, very sick of it just after the headline tour, [and with] the infected wisdom tooth, so I was not really feeling singing super high on this demo stuff this time,” but Maria had a creative solution to this rising issue. “With some demos, I went very, very low. And in the studio, they kind of begged us to go higher, but I really didn’t want to lose my voice again! I listen to them, thankfully, because you shouldn’t make decisions when you’re in a bad state. But a few songs stayed low because there was an intentional decision that I want to show a new phase of me, or a new version where I also sing a bit lower. That it doesn’t always have to be the super high singing rock music thing, it’s a bit more diverse. I wanted to show like, my range and have people get to know me, yeah? I just want to make the songs the most present thing, and my voice just goes with it.”
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FUTURE PALACE, while pushing hard for the best album they could with Distortion, have managed to make a diamond strong record and still manage to create a fresh, authentic experience. it’s a record they won’t forget making in a hurry, and one that only demonstrates their commitment to moving forward to more exciting places.
Distortion is out now via Arising Empire.
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