Music reviews: Palma Violets, Emika, Ciara
Following their chaotic live shows and the brash garage punk of their 2013 debut, 180, the album that spawned their much-lauded single Best of Friends, London’s Palma Violets were championed as one of guitar rock’s brightest hopes.

Danger in the Club
Rough Trade

Following their chaotic live shows and the brash garage punk of their 2013 debut, 180, the album that spawned their much-lauded single Best of Friends, London’s Palma Violets were championed as one of guitar rock’s brightest hopes.
Produced by John Leckie (Muse, Radiohead), the indie quartet’s second album, Danger in the Club, retains their youthful sweaty spirit and continues the same shambolic sing-along manifesto without ever really striving for anything too ambitious.
When Danger in the Club does break from the festival anthems (Gout! Gang! Go! and Coming Over to My Place) and Clash-lite formula (Girl, You Couldn’t Do Much Better on the Beach), it really begins to breathe, embracing a bittersweet and melancholic tone such as on the darkly sprawling Matador and the bar-room brawling Peter & the Gun.
Other than the doo-wop misstep of Walking Home, bassist Chilli Jesson and singer/guitarist Sam Fryer certainly channel their inner Jones and Strummer into rowdy and ramshackle harmonies, but overall Danger in the Club fails to capture the gang’s reckless live energy.

DREI
Emika Records

