Pale Waves

 

“Feeling naked, dressed up head to toe / It’s been a while since I’ve been this vulnerable,” sings Heather Baron-Gracie – of the British alt-rock four-piece Pale Waves (Heather, Ciara Doran, Hugo Silvani, Charlie Wood) – on “Seeing Stars”, a gorgeously melodic slice of dream-pop about opening yourself up to love, heartbreak and self-discovery. In many ways, these are the themes that define their fourth album Smitten: vulnerability, love, sexuality, queerness, finding yourself, moving on, growing up.

 

Sonically, Smitten sees the band go back to their beginnings. Deviating from the rebellious pop punk sound of 2022 album Unwanted, this new record is full of vivid, earwormy hooks, thwacking snares and jangly alt-pop that sounds fresh out of Manchester, where they’re from. This isn’t an LA-influenced album. “I kind of wanted to go back to our roots,” says Heather. “There’s a bit of each album in this. I really wanted to take it back to the purest version of us – and even myself.” Recorded in Eastbourne in the UK, by the sea – alongside London producer Iain Berryman (Wolf Alice, Florence and the Machine, Beabadoobee) – there’s a sense of authenticity and organicness at the heart of the album. “I’m not really trying any crazy looks or doing anything special [this time] – I’m just doing Heather.” Vocally, too, Heather leaned into what felt most natural, allowing her voice to flow freely, oftentimes channelling the soft and dreamy but strong sounds of Garbage’s Shirley Manson or The Cranberries’ Dolores O'Riordan – women she grew up listening to and idolising. 

 

Ultimately, Smitten is Pale Waves at their realest and most grounded. The songs sparkle with an intense emotional resonance that was only possible to express from a place of relative calm. “For this fourth album, I didn’t really feel the pressure,” says Heather. “I had a lot of time to try things out for size. Me and the band figured out what works for us. Smitten is different [from anything else we’ve done] because you can hear the freedom that we all feel – it’s not trying to be anything. We wanted to put that into existence.”