Premiere: Electric Palace, ‘Better Days’

Kevin Bronson on April 5th, 2021

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If the collective rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic could be soundtracked by one rock ’n’ roll chorus, Electric Palace has just the thing in its new single “Better Days.”

“It’s gonna turn around I promise / Into better times and you’ll find / We can’t go on this long forever / Gonna see better days together,” the bicoastal duo sings with glammy glee, punctuating the words with a few giddy “la-la-la-las.”

Officially releasing on Friday, “Better Days” is the first single of 2021 from the duo of singer-guitarist TJ Rosenthal and drummer Joe Zdaa, who got their start in 2016 under the name Monk Tamony and changed things up after Zdaa gave up the Lower East Side for Venice Beach.

“We are bicoastal now, which, to be honest, is an element of this project we both loved the minute I realized this wasn’t insane,” Rosenthal says. “When I first heard from Joe that he was going West Coast, literally after we recorded our first album, it was like, wait, what? How the hell are we gonna rehearse? Just fly to L.A. … OK, are you fucking nuts, man? But it’s honestly been so fun and really, a major part of the band’s fabric and growth. Everything has stayed fresh this way.”

The duo has grown its sound along the way. “Better Days” starts as a steady affirmation before escalating into a rave-up of hope that echoes more than a little bit of the Britrock over which Rosenthal and Zdaa bonded when they first became friends.

“[Better Days] was written sometime in summer of 2020 as the pandemic settled in to become a life-changer for everyone,” the band says. “The mood I was feeling at the time was a combination of bleakness, but hope with the sun and weather. Nobody can truly say when all of this will be in the rear-view mirror, but almost as a self-help affirmation when I was playing with the chords, out came the lyric, ‘Gonna see better days / soon they’ll all be falling into place.’”

The single will appear on Electric Palace’s forthcoming album “Pretend,” which finds the duo teaming up with NYC producer Aaron Bastinelli (The Hold Steady, Matt and Kim, The Roots) and Zdaa’s L.A. neighbor, Sune Wagner of The Raveonettes.

“Nowadays,” the band says, “we are not bicoastal as much as we are just going postal, but who isn’t? Hopefully, we all can find some sense of normalcy again soon.”

||| Stream: “Better Days”