Review: Matt Palmer teeters on the brink of superstardom with ‘Get Lost’ EP

Lemonade‘s shocking loss at the 2017 Grammy Awards is the shot heard ’round the world. Adele‘s 25, which sold more than three million units its first week of release back in late 2015, walked away with the pinnacle of the night’s trophies, Album of the Year. It’s not a wholly undeserved win; Adele has done her fair share of industry-busting damage in her career. But Beyonce‘s emotionally-scarred, back-biting visual album is transcendent, setting the stage for a reconfiguration on how albums could be consumed. It’s a long-awaited injection the music business has desperately needed for years, and while Beyonce’s 2013 self-titled LP was certainly an unexpected, yet satisfying, punch to the face, Lemonade fine-tuned the concept that visuals, an art-form once cherished through such mediums as MTV in the ’80s and ’90s and which seems to have regained footing in the past five years, could elevate the material to even grander heights. The monstrous release sparked renewed creativity and passion in cultivating deeply-moving storytelling.

The modern music era will forever be: before Lemonade and after Lemonade.

That’s where pop newcomer Matt Palmer comes into the picture. 2018’s Get Lost EP is an enchanting soundscape of youthful romanticism, hitting upon a once-fiery relationship that needles through the honeymoon phase to betrayal to devastation to rebirth. He culls together a keen Beyonce-approved proclivity for playfully steamy beats (“Giving Up on My Love”) and gut-wrenching tear-stained wailing (“The Worst”) and the magical pristine of his idol Mariah Carey, especially on “Inevitably,” the apex of his burgeoning career. “This ain’t infatuation / Baby it’s the real thing / I could say without hesitation / You’re where I wanna be,” he sings, an audacious, flirtatious claim between flittering sheets of synths and percussion. He’s the kind of person to wear his heart on his sleeve, an emblem that just might get him in trouble from time to time, but also one he treasures beyond all else. “I been dreaming of you / Still dreaming of me? / Bet we end up together Inevitably.”

Palmer also rises with a spectacular flourish with EP opener “Solo Act,” in which he wrestles with his titanic Kelly Clarkson detachment (think “Miss Independent) and his aching desire to feel. “I’ve always been a solo act / I’ve fallen in love but never made it last / I give up my heart and then I take it back,” he sings as he mounts a dizzying trapeze act, tip-toeing between genres with indisputable adeptness. His voice is nearly always gripping and tugs the listener along for a ride whether they’re emotionally prepared or not. A colossal bookend, “Comfortable” is burned into his skin and serves as a profound statement piece on what it means to be an LGBTQ+ individual, erupting with a gospel choir as it navigates the ruins of trying to adhere to someone else’s tired perceptions of self (in his case, a former lover’s).

“All the lies that you spread used to get in my head,” he confesses from the start, detailing his mental collapse and descent into self-hatred. “Used to make me think / Well, something’s wrong with wrong with me / Like my thoughts were impure / Like I needed a cure / I was just a child and you would tell me…” In the pre-chorus, he dives further into the darkness to reclaim himself and turns over each stone to discover slithering, venomous serpents: “To stiffen that wrist boy / And watch that lisp boy / And maybe they don’t know / Change who you are and you could go far / Just make them…comfortable.”

At a time when bigotry is boiling over into the streets, headlines and social feeds, such landmark films as Love, Simon and Boy Erased are even more crucial to the LGBTQ+ story and in destroying a system built on silencing the truth. The extraordinary art of other LGBTQ+ artists like Leland, Jesse Saint John, Kim Petras, Rayvon Owen, Semler and Eli Lieb, among countless more, will not be discarded so carelessly. Palmer’s Get Lost EP emerges as a significant release, too, and as its visual component (directed by long-term collaborator Ryan P. Bartley) leans heavily into chronicling a rocky romance, his message of humanity, compassion, strength and determination rings out like a rallying cry from the proverbial mountaintops.

It’s time to really listen.

Photo Credit: Brian Jamie

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