Manchester-born rock band’s new album Smitten is arguably the band’s smoothest record yet. While the band’s previous 3 albums were experimental in their construction and delivery, Smitten feels as if the band has come home to themselves, and in the process, have found a genius way to incorporate their disparate and eclectic influences.
The band, who brilliantly blend nostalgic sounds such as 80’s rhythms and beats, 70s style sounds, and early 2000s mainstream punk-rock, use this album to further polish and establish their diverse and original sound. What makes Smitten so powerful is it blatant queerness, and its embrace of the complex lives of queer people.
The songs on Smitten explore queer themes such as love and loss, all brilliantly delivered by lead singer Heather Baron-Gracie crooning, which sounds nostalgically similar to The Cranberries’ Dolores O'Riordan and early 2000s Avril Lavigne.
The love songs on the album include ‘Gravity’ which is a dreamy queer love song in which Baron-Gracie sings of her lover’s euphoric effect on her with lyrics such as 'She keeps pulling me like gravity, everywhere she goes', and the sweet and somber Perfume which is the album’s most powerful queer love song with lyrics such as 'I wanna make you my girl / I wanna make you my world'.
The album also contains songs of queer loss such as the album’s opening sapphic breakup song ‘Glasgow’ in which Baron-Gracie prepares herself for breaking her lover’s heart, and the song ‘This Is Not A Love Song’ that contains stinging lyrics, 'This is not a love song/ we don’t end up together'. And the powerful song ‘Miss America’ in which Baron-Gracie reminisces over the loss of a relationship and seeks to find cause for blame. Miss America's lyrics includes lines such as 'Champagne made my words come out/ should’ve shut my stupid mouth/ High or low, or up or down/ Said she's gonna love me anyhow'.
With the diverse songs on the album that mostly explore queer love and loss, Pale Waves is giving a voice to an often-marginalized community. The album’s diverse representation of queer love and life is important, especially in the time in which queer voices in media and music face forces that wish to silence them.
Pale Waves’ Smitten may be critiqued for sounding mainstream, but what the band brilliantly does with the album is bring queer lives and experiences to a diverse, mainstream audience.
Too often queer voices have been forgotten in music, but Pale Waves, particularly on Smitten, shows the complex and beautiful lives of queer people and their experiences with love, loss, redemption, and empowerment. Smitten feels like Pale Waves most empowered and polished album, and if it is a sign of music to come from the band, Pale Waves have found their voice, and aim to give a voice to those who are often voiceless in music.
The brand new album Smitten is available on all major platforms right now, just in time for the band's upcoming UK headline tour which kicks off this October!
Tickets available from: https://palewaves.co.uk/live/
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Article By James Reeves
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