Pale Waves

In many ways, these are the themes that define Pale Wave’s fourth album
Smitten: vulnerability, love, sexuality, queerness, finding yourself, moving on,
growing up. “I was reading a lot of sapphic poetry and queer films and just being ultra
queer,” Heather says today. “I feel like that unlocked a lot of my past experiences with
women that have been in my life, that I’ve been in relationships with and that I’ve
been in love with.”

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.”

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.”