ALBUM REVIEW: Unwanted – Pale Waves
Bursting onto the scene in 2018, Manchester power-pop group PALE WAVES immediately won over fans with their sparkly yet driving anthems about young love and heartbreak. Initially, struggling to get out of the shadow of THE 1975 – Matt Healy acted as a mentor in the band’s early days – PALE WAVES differentiated themselves from their labelmates on the follow-up record Who Am I?.
Deliberately answering critics who would be quick to draw the comparison to their fellow Mancunians, the sophomore album leaned harder into the 90s pop and singer-songwriter influences, drawing comparisons to ALANIS MORRISETTE, AVRIL LAVIGNE, and BLONDIE (the latter of which the band cite as a direct influence).
This album also saw frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie open up lyrically, embracing her queerness on tracks like She’s My Religion. PALE WAVES’ maturation continues on their third album, Unwanted, which sees the band reinvent themselves once again as they embrace a darker, more alternative sound.
Perhaps spurred on by contemporaries like WILLOW SMITH and even OLIVIA RODRIGO, PALE WAVES have entered their pop-punk era on album three. Palm-muted guitars, power chords, and energetic drum fills abound across the record, lending a harder edge to the group’s lovesick anthems. It makes sense when you consider that the record was produced by Zakk Cervini, known for working with BLINK-182 and MODERN BASEBALL, as well as pop superstar HALSEY.
The style suits the band’s angsty persona to a tee, with lyrics like “wish I could go back to the night I met you/so I could tell you to go to hell” filling the songs with youthful frustration. But it’s not all angst here, there are plenty of joyful moments as well, like the unrequited love anthem Clean and the gratitude-filled Reasons To Live. These optimistic moments find PALE WAVES at their most endearing, allowing a ray of sunshine to break through the clouds of their gloomy goth-pop persona.
The Hard Way is a gorgeous and gentle take on a genuinely harrowing topic – Baron-Gracie’s experience of knowing a school peer who took their own life. The rising and falling of “it wasn’t my place” as she touches on the guilt she felt and not doing more for her friend are genuinely heartbreaking and will no doubt see tear-stained sing-alongs in the live setting. Despite the ballad sitting alongside playful songs about exes, it doesn’t feel exploitative. Everything PALE WAVES do is delivered with such sincerity and earnestness that one can’t help but get swept up in the emotion.
Although sugary melodies are PALE WAVES’ bread and butter, the songs occasionally feel a little overproduced. Baron-Gracie’s distinctive voice doesn’t need to be draped in layers for these melodies to stick – in fact, the harmonies on Numb almost take away from one of the album’s most vulnerable moments.
Unwanted isn’t as big a leap forward as Who Am I? but it is still a progression for a band that finally seems comfortable in a sound that’s very much their own.
Rating: 8/10
Unwanted is set for release on August 12th via Dirty Hit.
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