Palehounds new album Eye On The Bat charts something that divides you into before and after the danger of fantasy, of heartbreak, and the pain of growth. How we can surprise ourselves. Its a documentation of illusions shattering, both of yourself and of others. A tangle of raw nerves coming undone amongst swelling, propulsive instrumentation, its the biggest and best Palehound has sounded on record.

From Palehounds critically-acclaimed debut album Dry Food (2015) to A Place Ill Always Go (2017), and Black Friday (2019) and then, Doomin Sun (2021) by Bachelor (a collaborative project with Jay Soms Melina Duterte), El Kempners songwriting has always been generous and personal, dispatches from a deep inner world. On Eye On The Bat, though, we meet Kempner anew: a guttural howl; white-hot and blistering catharsis; a feverish and visceral and painful present.

As Palehound, Kempners guitar playing their sinewy and off-kilter riffs has always been front and center across the projects discography, like smoke unfurling around anxiety-laden lyrics. Its cerebral, trying to make sense of grief in a grocery store or an argument in a parking lot, plumbing the anxious depths of the interiors. Introspection, retrospection, whatever youd like to call it, has threaded together Kempners songwriting, the bruising aftermath of trying times, since the very beginning. Here, though, were trapped in the immediate: witnessing the tiny details that build or break a relationship, and the flood that comes after.

Its about me, but its also about me in relation to others, Kempner says of the album. After hiding for so long staying inside and hiding your life and hiding yourself from the world I was ready. I think I flipped.

Recorded in brief stints across 2022 at Flying Cloud Recordings in the Catskills, the space between each session gave Kempner more time to breathe, to revisit the songs after time away. Kempner co-produced Eye On The Bat alongside Sam Owens (Big Thief, Cass McCombs), who was also crucial to the process -- lending assistance yet allowing Kempner to take the reins on producing, to call the shots on the session and step into their own as a producer. Kempner also credits multi-instrumentalist Larz Brogan, who they refers to as their platonic life partner and longtime member of Palehound since the Boston DIY days, as a vital part of making the album come together the way it did. They make Kempner feel seen - allow them to be vulnerable, to experiment, to push themself in the studio. After playing together for so many years, Brogan and Kempner both wanted to push themselves to make a record that sounded less produced, one that simply captured the raw energy of Palehound live. Stand-out track U Want It U Got It was almost entirely self-produced by Kempner at home, save for Brogans drumming, the first time anything of the sort has made it onto a Palehound record.

In the past, Ive taken myself really seriously in the studio, and Ive ended up with really serious-sounding records, Kempner explains. This one its a break up record. I wanted it to sound raw. I wanted it to sound like I was feeling very much in control, and out of control, at the same time.

Opening track Good Sex charts trying to make a relationship work, the desperation to recapture something, in searing detail; before dissolving into Independence Day, its chaotic counterpart, where you realize you cant and find yourself breaking someones heart in the glow of fireworks. The Clutch flies by red flags, plunging forward even though it shouldnt, even though its speeding toward heartbreak; while My Evil is about being the heartbreaker, hurting someone you never could have imagined hurting. Accepting that, even if unintentional, we all act as villains in someone elses story.

The poetry is still present full of aching and shrine-building to minutiae but it feels genuinely diaristic and authentic. In the past, Kempner admits to hiding behind poetic notions, burying the hurt in metaphors. But here, Els at their most open and vulnerable. I was trying too hard to figure out who I am - what kind of musician I want to be, what kind of person I want to be, Kempner explains. And now Im just embracing my instinct, and bucking what other peoples expectations are. These songs are truly just for me. I was really intentional in processing every detail. For my own sake, frankly.

Eye On The Bat is not a hopeful record in content, but its immediately recognizable as the sort of totem you come out clutching on the other side of profound change. It feels like a promise to yourself if you made it through that, youll handle whatever comes next.

All songs written by El Kempner

Produced by El Kempner and Sam Owens

Mixed and Engineered by Sam Owens at Flying Cloud Recordings

Mastered by Heba Kadry, NYC