Album Review: Pale Waves - Smitten

Cynicism abounds, and often for good reason. There are ample reasons to be cynical about Pale Waves. They burst onto the scene with an album that many people regarded as being a copy of The 1975, which earned them plenty of criticism. They pivoted away from that toward the pop/rock revival, which earned them plenty of criticism for still being unoriginal, while also not being good enough. So now they are returning to their original sound, which I'm sure will earn them plenty of criticism, because there is a chance it is merely a ploy to try to win back the people who liked their first album and not the ones that followed.

I am in that camp. Their debut record was a lovely bit of cold, detached synth-rock that in hindsight was mining the same territory Taylor Swift would find on "Midnights". I still have fondness for "Television Romance" and many of those other tracks, yet I have not re-listened to their second or third albums since I found myself talking about them on these pages. And that's despite the fact I liked those records more than a lot of people did. They didn't stick.

So I am happy to hear the band sounding like themselves again, even if there are questions about exactly who they are, and if this is actually their sound. Heather's voice fits this aesthetic better than a more energetic rock band, and simply not being miscast is a point in their favor. "Not A Love Song" has bits of that pop-rock chapter in it, but filtered through Smiths-style synth work, which tamps things down enough to befit the performance. Cold pop has been a thing for a few years now, and Pale Waves takes the best parts of that sound and is able to actually make it sound like pop music. Too often, being muted leaves the songs with no hook at all to them, but Heather has just the right voice to bridge the gap between sad and memorable.

"Perfume" uses the same falsetto jumps "Television Romance" did, which we might call 'hipster yodeling', but gives movement to the melody that is able to hook us. Even when the music itself is a bit flat, as if Heather's vocal, those little movements give the songs a sing-song feeling that makes them engaging through the morass. It's the same high-wire act they performed on their debut record, and to hear them return seamlessly to it is a bit of a difficult thing to wrap my head around.

As the second half of the record unfolds, the shift becomes more natural. Songs like "Seeing Stars" and "Imagination" are pop/rock with a veneer stapled atop them. This is where we hear what is really going on with the record; Pale Waves is realizing it wasn't the songwriting that was failing them, but rather an aesthetic they couldn't embody naturally. Heather's voice is perfect for one thing, and wrong for nearly everything else. When the band tried to be more up-tempo and snappy, it didn't work. She isn't that knid of singer, and pulling the temperature of those songs down to match her tone is all that was needed.

I coined the term 'Daria rock' when I first heard them, and that is where we remain. Rather than being season one, when Daria was a cynic who hated everything, we are now in season five, and Daria has shown emotional growth. Pale Waves is similar, wherein they now are able to be the pop/rock band they have wanted to be, but do it in a way that feels more like themselves. Only time will tell which way this record will age, but the initial feeling is that they just might have pulled a rabbit out of their hat. It's about time.