(5 / 5)
This young impressive UK four-piece are a cool addition to any festival stage – live they kick butt – and their previous three albums in 2018, 2021 and 2022 have all done well for them and are certainly decent pieces of work.
But their fourth long player release “Smitten” is something else entirely to what has come before. It is the sound of a band coming of age and in their own lane. A wonderful set of songs, perhaps their strongest so far and there’s an indelible spirit running at the core of this project.
I’ve seen them twice at festivals, and that prompted me to visit their back catalogue at the time: “My Mind Makes Noises”, “Who Am I?” and “Unwanted”. I enjoyed much of all three albums, but for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I always felt there was maybe something missing; that they had not yet found and mined that seam of sparkling nuggets as regards the song writing. Until now…
The release of “Smitten” was preceded by the excellent singles “Perfume”, “Glasgow”, “Gravity”, and “Thinking About You”. The UK album chart placings for all four albums by Pale Waves are: # 8, # 3, # 4 and this new one, # 13. In the UK indie chart, they scored a top spot for all three previous albums and # 3 with this one.
Singer Heather Baron-Gracie, drummer Ciara Doran, guitarist Hugo Silvani and bassist Charlie Wood formed the band a decade ago in Manchester as “Creek”, changing the name to Pale Waves based on a painting by Heather’s grandmother. The band started out as a synth’ rock-pop outfit and progressed into more pop-punk. They signed to the Dirty Hit label in 2017.
These dozen original songs on “Smitten” are inspired by the pages of Heather’s teenage diary. The album was co-produced by Simon Oscroft, Iain Berryman, and Hugo Silvani, recorded in L.A. and London.
Heather’s vocal approach across the LP sounds to me far less aggressive / ballsy, and more refined and laid back; she took influence from country music which often features just acoustic guitar and vocals. In particular Kelsea Ballerini and Kacey Musgraves, and her vocal heroine Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberies, to elicit a more free and fragile vocal performance than belting out the “solid, huge notes” she is known for and which comes so naturally.
I am deliberately not going to pick out my favourite tracks of the 12, because the honest critique is there isn’t one single track that rises above another, it is all of equal goodness. No fillers to my ears in this cohesive set, which should be heard in order with no interruptions; and not by dipping in and out of a few tracks at a time, to get the best out of the project.
There is romance here, there is passion, there is frustration and there are tears. Just like the stream of consciousness entries in a teenager’s diary/journal in the early days of relationships and the exploration of one’s sexuality.
By Christopher Weston
(1 / 5) ‘Dull Zone’
(2 / 5) ‘OK Zone’
(3 / 5) ‘Decent Zone’
(4 / 5) ‘Super Zone’ (5 / 5) ‘Awesome Zone’
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