Pale Waves, My Mind Makes Noises - album review
Pale by name, Pale by nature. It's unfortunate, but despite their build-up in plenty of musical corners this record never really gets going.
From start to finish, apart from the odd flourish of creativity, the album feels stuck in first gear like a nervous pensioner venturing down the slip road onto the M6 for the first time in years.
As far as debuts go, it doesn't scream a long and successful career for the group. But we're happy to be proved wrong!
Mancunians Pale Waves take the synth pop vibe to heart and rarely venture away from it. Take the track She, its ponderous nature through a constant buzz of electro backdrop never once deviates from that sound. And there are plenty of others that follow suit.
That hanging 'fog' of sound also lingers uncomfortably in When Did I Lose It All? It doesn't do much to support the vocals of Heather Baron-Gracie either. In fact, the two elements can sound a little tedious after a while.
The themes also feel too 'young'. It's like the soundtrack to a teen vampire/witch drama throughout. There are only so many times you can sing about forlorn love or spotting somebody for the first time before it becomes old hat.
Things do liven up for songs like One More Time and There's A Honey but these songs are let down by those kind of saccharine pop choruses that make every Katy Perry hit so sickly sweet. They just fail to land a gripping hook other than the jilting and happy Came In Close. This track actually is a heap of fun with its punchy chorus and layered synths.
We don't like to be overly negative. We always look for the positives in every record. But this is so frustratingly one-dimensional it makes former Blues midfielder Lee Carsley look like an awe-inspiring continental flair merchant.
Some tracks even verge too far into similarity. Television Romance almost copies that upbeat repetition in the chorus of There's A Honey. They could almost be the same song.
All these things combine with a 12-track length that is too long. Pale by name. Pale by nature indeed.
Rating: 4/10
Pale Waves headline Birmingham's O2 Academy tomorrow (Tuesday), before returning to the city as support for The 1975 at Arena Birmingham on January 23 next year.
