Projects that Lee gets involved with always seem to gravitate towards darkness. Hooded Fang took a decidely dark turn with Gravez as the band began fully embracing noisy rock, and Phèdre’s hip-hop-influenced music became a lot less glamorous with Golden Age.
Lee certainly isn’t making any attempt to hide the dark tones of Water Palace Kingdom, an album driven by grotesque imagery, heavy bass riffs and the odd bit of funereal organ. But as with his other projects, his song titles mask the song’s true natures.
Album closer “Paradise,” with its eerie organ and subtler-than-normal bass, becomes even creepier with images of “simians who lick their bowels” and the chorus that almost, but doesn’t quite say, that “you can finally go” to the other side. Opener “Amoreux” seems to speak of anything but love, with its sinister bass riff and Joy-Division-esque vocals from Lee. And that’s not even getting into the lyrics, with phrases like “You’re too sick to be stumbling” and the repetition of the phrase “I’m pissing in the sink.”
The most apt song title is “One Man’s Grave” which, naturally, is the creepiest song on the album, with an equally creepy organ supporting the main melody.
All creepiness aside, this album is also exceedingly catchy. Those looking for a bass groove should look no further than the excellent “Breaker.” The woozy, disorienting combination of synthesizers and bass combined with a fast tempo make “Farisian” utterly joyful to move to. “Honourific” flows naturally from “Farisian” to keep the energy up.
Good pop music doesn’t have to be happy, as Lee Paradise has proved on this album. Water Palace Kingdom officially drops on April 26, with a CD release show at Toronto’s Silver Dollar Room on April 25.
