Miami trio Palomino Blond channel angst into heavy alt-rock fury in “Understand,” the emotionally charged lead single off their sophomore album ‘You Feel It Too.’
Stream: “Understand” – Palomino Blond
Angst can’t be manufactured; you either feel it, or you don’t.
And boy, do Palomino Blond feel it.
The alt-rock band’s first single of the year is a slick eruption of raw tension and inner turmoil; of their native Floridian heat and the cool chill of unrequited desires. It’s a song that aches throughout, speaking to a friction we’ve all felt at some point in our lives: Heavy, angsty, and unapologetically volatile, “Understand” is an intimate reckoning with the one thing we can’t achieve on our own: Human connection.
The year was just beginning
Your laugh, locked in memories
The tactile feeling will wash over me
The moment I’m cold
And when the weather hits 70 degrees
you think of me or at least that’s what you said,
I don’t know what I should believe
Either way I know it’s like a reflex
But when you reach out to me,
I need you to understand,
I need you to understand,
I need you to understand,
I need you, I need you, I need you
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Understand,” the lead single off Palomino Blond’s upcoming sophomore album You Feel It Too (out October 4, 2024 via Kanine Records). Comprised of Carli Acosta (guitar/lead vocals), Emma Arevalo (drums/vocals), and Peter Allen (guitar), the Miami indie rock trio have been carving out their own space in the alternative landscape since they first formed in 2018, making a name for themselves with a heavy, brash, multi-dimensional sound that pulls from the grunge, shoegaze, dream pop, and indie sleaze worlds. The band’s debut album ontheinside, independently released in November 2021, spawned such fiery tracks as “Phoebe” and “Lovely,” and feels as charged and churning today as it did upon its release three years ago.
You Feel It Too sees Palomino Blond continuing to finesse their sound and hone their songwriting and production skills; the upcoming record was produced by the band, with engineering from Ryan Haft (Jacuzzi Boys, Wrong, Torche), Jonathan Nuñez (of Torche) and the band themselves, and mastering by Dan Coutant (A Giant Dog, Jawbox, Fiddlehead). “There are some heavy emotions in here, but they’re woven in a dynamic duality of heavy and heavenly,” the trio shares.
Following last June’s standalone single “Machine” (which will also feature on the full LP), “Understand” is the first ‘proper’ look at Palomino Blond’s new era – and perhaps what stands out most, from the onset, is the sheer weight of the track. Cinematic drums and full-bodied bass guitars pulse a heavy beat as lead guitars rage and roar, dropping out only so that lead singer Carli Acosta can spill their soul into the microphone.
Palpable tension and heat in the verses steadily rises to a fever pitch and ultimately boils over with a furious, dramatic intensity. “I need you to understand,” they sing repeatedly in the song’s explosive, emotionally charged chorus. It’s the kind of massive cathartic release many bands set out to achieve, but few successfully create on record.
You’re in my dreams unwelcome
and relentless like a fire burns
And I can’t forget this feeling that you gave me,
God it hurts
And late at night I send myself in a moment to relive
Every touch and every beat that I felt you on my skin
For Carli Acosta and their bandmates, “Understand” isn’t just an upheaval of sound; it’s a deeply personal, visceral release as well.
“I wrote ‘Understand’ in one sitting while playing around with the guitar,” Acosta tells Atwood Magazine. “I was trying to learn another band’s song by ear, but just ended up messing around, then threw some effects on my guitar track and word-vomited the lyrics. I think it was Victor Wooten who said playing on your instrument can be just as important as practicing, and as a songwriter, it’s way more freeing. So writing the verse, I was just playing and having fun. The rest of the song just came to life. I wasn’t thinking, it just felt like the song was happening to me.”
“The lyrics were word vomit like I mentioned. I wrote it about a situation where I completely idealized another person, and she idealized me, and we never knew each other past these fabricated versions. It was a very surface-level, yet overwhelming and intoxicating relationship, for me. I think the lyrics are very in-your-face.”
“I wanted the song to get a certain feeling across: A Miami winter, which is never colder than 50 degrees when the sun goes down. Most of the subject matter in the song revolves around a few winters where I was back and forth with this person, and our lack of a deeper relationship, which only made me want more. The verses sound like winter to me. The song mentions ‘needing’ this person, and needing them to understand how I felt. But what I really needed was the idea of someone who didn’t exist.”
Palomino Blond knew they wanted “Understand” to feel larger-than-life, and they found the right team to help make their vision a reality.
“We took the song to Jonathan Nuñez at Sound Artillery in Miami to record the instrumental, because we knew he’d nail making it sound enormous and explosive,” Acosta recalls. “He has a great collection of gear and the studio has really high ceilings which was cool for the drum sound. We recorded the vocals with Ryan Haft at Sunburn Studios, which is a newer studio. That was really exciting for us and injected a lot of life into the recordings. Ryan also mixed the track.”
“We wanted to outro to sound like a dragon flying out of the speakers. We used a killswitch pedal to get the guitar to stutter in rhythm, a ton of feedback, a Walrus Audio flanger that I love and a ton of distortion from the Earthquaker Devices Hizumitas and Nuñez Tetra Fet Drive pedals. There are some really interesting artifacts, the drum tracks clipping and my voice breaking, that made the final cut.”
Need you to understand
I need you to understand
I need you to understand
I need you, I need you, I need you
It makes me sick to my stomach understand
That I blink and it’s November again
I need you, I need you, I need you
As far as reintroductions are concerned, “Understand” is the perfect reminder of who Palomino Blond are and why they deserve our undivided attention The band describe their new album as “a deep swim in thick, plush waters at once cradling and crushing;” stream its liberating, soul-crushing lead single exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
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Stream: “Understand” – Palomino Blond
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