Future Palace’s Maria Lessing and Manuel Kohlert guide us through the drama and decadence of their stunning new album, out July 31 via Century Media Records.
Deep Blue
Manuel: Deep Blue opens the album with a strong and catchy vibe, the feeling of a fresh start. Exactly what I had in mind when starting to work on the new record. The overall combination of vocal hooks, driven guitars and ambient synths is definitely more rock-oriented than metal, while the breakdowns dive right into heavy territory. Either facet is placed on purpose, holding up the track’s energy and shaping the beginning of Resurgence.
Resurge
Maria: This song is like a theme song of the album to me. It’s about the thought of creating yourself completely anew, restarting, but also leaving behind everything you’ve built and everyone you love. On a more positive note, it is, just like the album, a source of motivation that you can change at any time and become a better version of yourself, almost like a form of rebirth after your older self has died. Musically, we have a few Nu Metal influences in this song and an overall 2000’s energy, which I think is really fun, but also a melancholic chorus and a heavy breakdown. It’s just an honest song.
Supernova
Manuel: We definitely like musical experiments. This track is one. It all started with vocal samples that I combined, glitched, and otherwise processed. The energy was there right from the start, so we kept it up with rather unusual verses and a big chorus. But when writing, I thought, why not break patterns even more and embrace the unusual by going for a full acoustic guitar part. Something we did not do before – and it worked. Supernova is a really fun song to play because it is so diverse yet everything fits so well.
Disintegrate
Maria: I actually really wanted this to be a single at first, the chorus was stuck in my head and still is every time I listen to this song. We had difficulty deciding which singles to choose for this album because we felt like almost every song had single potential (which we thought was a good sign, actually). This song is just about deep despair, being overwhelmed by everything in life and being almost disgusted with yourself and how much you feel like a loser and feeling really hopeless.
The Shades
Manuel: Initially this song was based on a single riff, exploring what you can create when you just stick to one theme. Over time it was shaped into something less brutal, less raw than it was in the beginning, giving it a real chorus and everything. But still it is probably one of the heaviest tracks we have done so far.
Nixy
Maria: This song is written as a story about a sea creature of Nordic mythology called Nixy/Nixi. It lures people in with its melodies and then drowns them in water. As I mention in the song, the people’s ignorance leads them to their own suffering but also keeps the monster alive. This story is not just randomly picked – I wanted to write a song about toxic people in the music industry who still get celebrated on stage, have many fans and much more, even though they are horrible people. I strongly criticise the thought of “dividing the artist from their art” because to me that is just ignorance.
Thorns
Manuel: Playing guitar in Future Palace for most of the time does not mean playing difficult riffs or shredding to the max. It is more about creating a vibe and contributing to the rest. So songs like Thorns that got fast and very riffy parts stick out to me because I do like playing these kinds of things, and sometimes they even make it on the record.
Ebb and Flow
Maria: This song is special to me because I started the idea for once, not Manuel, with an instrumental Demo. It was important to me to do something from scratch and write a song on my guitar. It was just a challenge to proof myself that I could do that. Later on, Manuel made a first Demo version out of it, and we made some more changes in the studio. I especially like the Chorus and the overall nostalgic feeling of this song. Fun fact: I got the idea for the lyrics when I got stuck in mud in France, before playing Hellfest, because a river that was coming out of the ocean had ebbed at that moment and I wasn’t aware. Well, at least I got an idea from it!
Nightfall
Manuel: Musically, Nightfall is a meditation with great power. Shaking everything, gripping and going to the core. I started writing the instrumental with the idea that Maria mentioned something like a metal meditation session and turning it into a song. I just started writing it randomly in the studio while our producer and Maria recorded vocals for another track. Turned out it fit perfectly.
Symphony of the Clouds
Manuel: This one is my Dark Horse. It has a strong Emo Posthardcore balladesque touch that gets me every time. The guitar melodies, the chorus, the synth-wavy verses, even the breakdown are not exactly typical for what we usually do; still, it resembles where we come from.
Tidal Waves
Maria: It’s the most personal song I have written. It’s about my younger sister, who is super important to me and I have a really strong connection with. Originally, the Demo was called ‘Heart’, so I knew this one had to truly come from my heart. It was really hard for me to finish, and it took me many months, because it was just too important to me and I didn’t want to write bad or inauthentic lyrics for this. We were both raised in a problematic family, and it was important to me to always be a safe space and help for my younger sister.
Cyclone
Maria: I think this one was the first or second Demo for Resurgence. The energy hit me right away, and I really wanted to represent the new power of this album in a song. A lot of strength and hope, but also doubt and self-hatred; overall, a deep wish for improvement and change in yourself, especially your mental health. This was one of the first songs where I was brave enough to go full in with my vocals, high and distorted chorus, really dynamic verses (switching from falsetto to chest voice), and an insanely long and brutal breakdown with the most screams I have ever done.
