When people think “New Orleans music,” often they think of big brass bands marching in second lines or folky guitarists laying down the blues. But like many cities, New Orleans is stratified with many musical layers. And ruminating in the tombs and cemeteries across town is “darkwave.”

Darkwave gets its name from new wave music in the late ’70s and early ’80s, following punk music. Mainly starting in Europe, the genre found its way worldwide and into the goth bars of New Orleans. The Palace of Tears proves on their debut LP Of Ruination that they deserve a seat, or coffin rather, in the canon of darkwave from New Orleans. 

Like others in the genre, they use melancholic and ethereal synths over artificial rhythms created by drum machines to create a haunting and foreboding ambience. What sets The Palace of Tears apart from others in the genre is the synergy between Leah Darkling (vocalist) and Erick r Scheid (multi-instrumentalist).

Darkling brings angelic vocals to the hymn-like songs creating an operatic grandness to their sound. On the other hand, Scheid creates dense soundscapes filled with heavily distorted guitar and whirling synths that sound like will-o’-the-wisps wandering the woods. 

The album runs at about 50 minutes with songs dragging along sometimes, but as is the convention in darkwave. The ambient style of the music makes it easy to turn a seven-minute track into one that feels half as long when losing yourself in the world presented.

And what a world it is. The band analyzes themes like grief and human fragility. The epic 15-minute title track Of Ruination sounds bleak and somehow hopeful, like a sunrise over the burnt ruins of a once towering cathedral. It’s a fitting end to the long night the couple has created.

 

Watch The Palace of Tears perform on Dr. Pinkerton’s Secret Lab: