Album Review: Palm Desert, Rays of the Gold and Grays
Posted in Reviews on December 2nd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Last year, Palm Desert took part in Electric Witch Mountain Recordings‘ compilation of Polish acts, Deep Seven Vol. 1 (review here), with the nine-minute “Elegy of the Past,” which had room in its expanse to harness a hard-driving desert-derived heavy rock and roll up front and still trip out a bit in the second half with a procession more laid back and psychedelic. Rays of the Gold and Grays, the follow-up LP from the long-running outfit, is either their sixth or third full-length, depending on how you want to count offerings like 2013’s Rotten Village Sessions or the jam-based 2016 LP, Songs From the Dead Seas, but what matters more than the numbers involved — which is something one might feel compelled to say when the numbers are murky — is the presence in the music.
Recorded by drummer Kamil Ziółkowski (also Spaceslug and Mountain of Misery) with a mix/master by Haldor Grunberg at Satanic Audio, the four-piece of Ziółkowski, bassist Jan Rutka (Spaceslug), vocalist Wojciech Gałuszka (who also recorded some vocals in Kettering, UK), and guitarist Piotr Łacny — plus Wojciech Kuczwalski on additional guitar — harness rich desert fuzz with a sense of largesse that should by this point be recognizable in Ziółkowski‘s recordings. The eight-song/43-minute outing has its foundation in rolling, warm distortion, as “In the Breeze” opens by drawing an immediate line to classic European underground heavy rock, whether that’s manifest in the inexplicable airy hugeness of Dozer or the riffy sway of modern practitioners like Kal-El.
In terms of ‘desert,’ you could extrapolate the charge of “Black Hurricane” from the likes of Kyuss, and of course the band are named after the town Kyuss came from, but it’s an effort to hear them with everything else Palm Desert have going on in their sound, and the dynamic that unfurls throughout Rays of the Gold and Grays draws more from the pointed focus on massive tonality than it does from the warm distortion that typifies desert rock. That is to say, Palm Desert bring more to the proceedings than one might anticipate at some 11 years’ remove from their last album-proper, and Rays of the Gold and Grays benefits greatly from that in aesthetic and realization.
As noted, “In the Breeze” launches the album, and it’s quickly dug into the roll that defines it. Gałuszka as a singer is prone to burl, but his voice is well in balance with the guitars, pushed down a bit in the mix so as not to compete with the riffs, and treated with a bit of reverb for good measure. This lets Gałuszka reside a bit more in the nascent swirl that caps “In the Breeze” and which the eight-and-a-half-minute “Lightriders” and the subsequent wah-burner “At the Edge of Time” build upon, and demonstrates a malleability of the mix to highlight various moments throughout. In “Black Hurricane,” which is the shortest track on Rays of the Gold and Grays at 3:33, it’s not all about the fuzzblast, but it’s pretty close, and as the guitar solo pushes over into the crescendo of song, the vocals are very much a part of that cacophony, but the voice doesn’t distract from what’s happening atmospherically there in terms of noise, and that’s a strength Palm Desert show throughout; not something that’s making or breaking your LP, necessarily, but an attention to detail satisfyingly reaffirmed by a mature band.
Paired perhaps for ‘black and blue’ purposes, “Black Hurricane” gives over fluidly to “Blue of the Sky,” with a layered vocal in the verse and a raw, forward trajectory that reminds a bit of Sasquatch in its smoothing out of stark turns before the solo finishes it out. Unsurprisingly, “Lightriders” as the not-quite-centerpiece intentionally has a broader scope — that is, “Blue of the Sky, “Black Hurricane,” etc. aren’t lacking, but different pieces here are written to different expressive ends — and starts quieter with a bit of swagger in the far off lead echoing behind the verse as it builds up before the explosion of tone that shoves it all on the listener, crushing and immersive, then stops, takes a breath, and does it again like 15 seconds later. Fans of London’s Steak will find themselves at home in the midst of all the ensuing big-tone nod, and Palm Desert give due ride to that very, very heavy riff that they’ve stuck in the middle-ish of their record, but diverge in the second half of the song to revisit the intro’s more subdued flow before thickening up the fuzz once more to roll to the end with residual lead echoing before the dreamier start of “At the Edge of Time” tells us the flip has been made to side B. An engine starts.
Hear a purring motor, and sure enough, Palm Desert are ‘burnin’ fuel,’ as the fellow says, in the groovy, wah-drenched crunch of “At the Edge of Time,” a steady, momentum-keeping lead-in for the title-track, which has another softer intro but hits plenty hard from there on, the riff like it’s trying to climb over itself to pull you in. Lower-register vocals in the chorus bring variety at a good moment for it, but there’s plenty of outreach in “Rays of the Gold and Grays,” backed by the immediacy with which “Son of a Wind and Dust” starts and deceptively establishes the riff before the verse actually begins, the band taking their time and staying in-pocket on the groove while it still sounds more straightforward than the title-track because it’s faster. I’d say it’s the little things, but for the fact that it comes across so enormous. The closer, “In My Eyes,” continues that thread while harkening back to some of the softer-landing moments with jammier tradeoff stretches, extra punch seeming to come through the bass even as the layers of guitar drive the album’s apex, finishing with leftover guitar keeping the energy with which it paid off the finale.
And ‘energy’ is a key component here, to be sure, but Rays of the Gold and Grays doesn’t rely simply on fervor to make its point in sound. Though it can feel monolithic at points, and I think it’s supposed to, the movement within and between songs is always there, and Palm Desert steer that momentum with craft and confidence in what they’re doing. In some ways, that’s emblematic of the band’s years, but no question it’s also what lets them bring a feeling of freshness to this material. I won’t predict when Palm Desert might be heard from again, but Rays of the Gold and Grays feels primed to greet new listeners.
