The name Future Palace didn’t come out of a brainstorming session with managers. It was simply the name of a WhatsApp chat created by guitarist Manuel Kohlert: the word Palace had stuck with him after a trip to London. When the new project needed a name, the members just moved their group chat’s name onto the posters. A rare case of a chat producing four studio albums instead of a pile of lost memes.
The Berlin trio came together in late 2018. Kohlert and drummer Johannes Früchtenicht were already playing together, and they met Maria Lessing when she recorded a guest vocal part for their previous band. Initially, the musicians were looking for a man who could combine clean singing with harsh vocals. They couldn’t find the right candidate, so Kohlert asked Maria to work on his instrumental demos. The chemistry was immediate. The plan needed rewriting.
The debut single Maybe arrived in March 2019, followed by Anomaly. Future Palace played their first shows on August 29 and 30 in Berlin and Hamburg. Their sound sat somewhere between alternative rock, post-hardcore, eighties synth-pop, and melodic metalcore. Lessing could sing almost an entire song clean before breaking into a scream—a technique that would later become one of the trio’s defining traits.
In March 2020, Future Palace signed with German label Arising Empire and released Illusionist, featuring Tobias Rische of Alazka. The timing for launching a major touring cycle was almost cruel: Europe was shutting down because of the pandemic. The announced tour had to be cancelled.
The first album, Escape, came out on September 18, 2020. Its songs dealt with depression, painful relationships, and the struggle to break free from emotional dependence. The title worked both literally and metaphorically, although the musicians had few opportunities to bring the record to the stage.
Ghost Chapter, Parted Ways, and Illusionist still retained a relatively soft alternative foundation. Electronics created a cold backdrop, Kohlert’s guitar left room for the melody, and Lessing’s vocals sounded more vulnerable than aggressive. The debut told a story of escape, yet arrived in a year when the trio found themselves stuck at home alongside their audience.
The turning point came with the second album, Run, released on June 10, 2022. Julian Breucker produced the material, while Annisokay guitarist Christoph Wieczorek handled mixing and mastering. The record reached No. 82 on the German albums chart, giving Future Palace their first chart entry.
Paradise, Flames, and Dead Inside brought massive breakdowns and considerably more harsh vocals. The synthesizers and pop melodies stayed firmly in place. The result was a blend of Spiritbox, early PVRIS, and present-day Bring Me the Horizon—an obvious comparison, though one that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
The lyrics on Run continued the story of someone who had left a destructive relationship only to discover an unpleasant detail: physically leaving doesn’t automatically bring inner freedom. Dead Inside explored the aftermath of dealing with someone who justified cruelty through their own “emotional coldness.” No romanticising it. And no happy ending arriving on cue.
Once restrictions were lifted, Future Palace finally had a chance to test the material onstage. Their first headline tour, Take Me to Paradise, took place in spring 2022. In 2023, the trio opened for Electric Callboy in European arenas—a useful education for a band that had been playing its first local shows just a few years earlier.
The lineup remained unchanged: Maria Lessing handled vocals and lyrics, Manuel Kohlert played guitar and built the foundations of the arrangements, and Johannes Früchtenicht played drums. Kohlert would usually put together an almost complete instrumental demo at home, including synthesizers, bass, and programmed drums, before the other members helped finish the song. For a trio, the method proved practical: the lack of a permanent bassist did little to stop them from delivering some seriously heavy low end.
The third album, Distortion, arrived on September 6, 2024, and climbed to No. 32 on the German chart. Julian Breucker and Christoph Wieczorek produced it. Eleven tracks fit into roughly 39 minutes—no drawn-out instrumental workouts, just tightly packed verses, electronic tension, and breakdowns.
The sessions were hardly comfortable. Lessing recorded her vocals after having a wisdom tooth removed, while also dealing with an inflamed root in another tooth. On Uncontrolled, Malphas, and Panic Paralysis, that physical strain unintentionally echoed the subject matter: the album dealt with anxiety disorders, loss of control, and psychological crises.
The Echoes of Disparity featured Charlie Rolfe of British band As Everything Unfolds. The two female voices moved together, heightening the sense of inner conflict without falling into the familiar clean-vocals-versus-screams duel. An extensive European and UK tour followed in the autumn, with shows moving to larger venues when the original rooms proved too small.
In 2025, Future Palace moved to Century Media Records. Cyclone became their first single on the new label, followed by Deep Blue. That same year, the band embarked on their first North American headline tour. For a German trio with less than a decade behind them, this was already an attempt to establish themselves in another market, well beyond a tentative trip for a couple of festival appearances.
By then, Future Palace’s music had moved well beyond the debut’s restrained alternative rock. Industrial rhythms, down-tuned guitar, and cinematic electronic layers had become as central as the choruses. The emotional core, however, remained the same: Lessing still wrote about depression, toxic relationships, and recovery, without turning psychological struggles into decorative darkness.
Resurgence came out on July 31, 2026, through Century Media. The singles Supernova, Resurge, and Tidal Waves preceded it. The album debuted at No. 18 on Germany’s national chart, Future Palace’s highest position to date.
Kohlert broadened the palette with acoustic guitars, ambient passages, and even more prominent industrial electronics. The central idea went beyond another round of “overcoming adversity,” exploring the painful process of rebuilding a sense of self after isolation and inner collapse. A substantial difference. An unexpected nu-metal influence surfaced on Resurge, while one of its images drew inspiration from Solatorobo, a Japanese video game Kohlert had loved as a child.
By 2026, Future Palace had gone from the name of a casual group chat to appearances at Wacken Open Air, Hellfest, and Graspop, sold-out European shows, and American tours. There were still only three of them onstage. Once the next breakdown kicks in, the absence of a fourth member is usually the last thing anyone notices.
