First Listen: Palma Violets - 180

I didn't listen to this today, I actually listened to it last night but I thought I made so many posts yesterday it'd be best to leave it until today. This was always going to be an interesting experience: I'm a regular reader of the NME magazine (who are all over Palma Violets at the moment) but personally I hadn't listened to more than a track at most of theirs. That is until last night when I listened to 180. I've read a ridiculous amount of hyperbolic statements about this record, claiming that its the best British debut of recent times. It reminds me a lot of the hype around Arctic Monkeys when they released their debut. I have to be honest: I don't echo those sentiments. 180 is a good album with some excellent tracks but I would be lying if I said its my favourite British debut in years. It hasn't even been my favourite album that I've heard this year (that honor belongs to The Next Day by David Bowie so far). As for debut records though it has been my first debut record of 2013. What I really like about 180 however is there's a lot of musicianship: personally I wouldn't be surprised if these guys go on to even better things following this debut. I certainly hope they do because I felt 180 was good and showed that Palma Violets have a lot of potential. Realistically I think I had just read so many big things about this album that frankly any album would struggled to have lived up to the hype. Tracks like Chicken Dippers and Tom The Drum I can see featuring on songs of the year posts later on in the year. Having said that 180 is a fine album and if they use it as a platform to build from then it could be the first of many excellent records from this group.