If numbers alone are anything to go by, Palace Of The King are proving themselves as a band to keep an eye on. With six members, two EPs, more than 200 live shows and now one album under their belt, the Melburnians have certainly made the most of their short two-and-a-half-year history.

Palace Of The King’s debut album White Bird/Burn The Sky was released last week, and it’s classic rock’n’roll by any definition, with an exploding wall of sound full of powerful guitar riffs and plenty of soulful hooks. Even the album title itself throws back to the good old days of the past, with the two names designed to represent each side of a vinyl record. Over 44 minutes of the band’s own blend of blues-infused rock’n’roll, choosing a standout track is a challenge, even for the band members themselves.

“During the writing and recording sessions, my personal favourite was always the opening track ‘Take Your Medicine’,” says guitarist Matthew Harrison.“To me, that just felt like the tone-setter for the rest of the album. But now, since we’ve started playing a lot of the songs live, one of the title tracks, ‘White Bird’,has been a really cool one.”

Since forming at the end of 2012, Palace Of The King have barely stopped for breath. They’re currently in the midst of an album tour, which will see them play Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney, among other regional cities – but having played 200-plus shows, being on the road is nothing new. After spending the past few years driving up and down the coast of Australia, Palace Of The King will head to Europe in October for a change of scenery.

“It’s quite a short tour – I think it’s only about three-and-a-half weeks or so, but we’ve got something like 24 shows in 24 days, so no nights off or anything like that. It will be a nice hard slog but great fun I’m sure,” Harrison says.

“I guess the main thing that we try and achieve out of our live shows, aside from just putting on an energetic rock’n’roll show, is to make each show itself quite unique, not only for the punters but for ourselves as well.”

Palace Of The King’s extensive touring schedule over the past few years has incorporated all kinds of gigs, from small headline shows to festival appearances and some highly esteemed support slots for the likes of The Tea Party, The Angels, The Screaming Jets, Kingswood and Airbourne – the latter of which marked Palace Of The King’s first Sydney show.

“The first ever time we went to Sydney, we played two shows in one night,” says Harrison. “The first show was supporting Airbourne and straight after that we went off to Frankie’s Pizza to play our own headline show. Because it was our first trip, we had no idea what to expect and what the turnout was going to be like, but because there was so much to do on the night, we didn’t have time to think or stress and it probably worked in our favour.

“We didn’t get on till 12:30 or something like that, but the venue was really packed and we played our longest show to date at that point, if not our longest show even up until now. We literally played everything that we possibly had up our sleeves. That night sort of set the scene for all the following Sydney shows we’ve had.”

White Bird/Burn The Sky is out now through Devil’s Music Records, and you can catch them in at Frankie’s Pizza on Saturday July 12.

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