Smitten is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Pale Waves. It was released on 27 September 2024 by the independent record labelDirty Hit. Co-produced by Simon Oscroft, Iain Berryman, and Hugo Silvani, Smitten was recorded in both Los Angeles and London, with production beginning in late 2023. Unlike the band's previous albums Who Am I? (2021) and Unwanted (2022), Smitten is closer in style to the group's earlier jangle-inspiredsynth-pop sound.
The lyrics on Smitten were largely inspired by lead singer Heather Baron-Gracie's reflections on her teenage diary, as well as her meditation on the emotions of early queer relationships; this resulted in a record that Baron-Gracie later described as "romantic, delicate, and feminine".[10] Musically, the record was inspired by musicians like Kelsea Ballerini, Kacey Musgraves, and Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries. Critics have also noted the likely influence of popular '80s bands like the Cure and Cocteau Twins.
According to review aggregators Metacritic and AnyDecentMusic?, Smitten received mostly positive reviews from critics, with many with critics applauding its ambitious pop hooks, its mature songwriting, and its return to the band's original synth-pop sound. Conversely, some criticism was directed at the album's simplistic sound. Smitten debuted at number 13 on the UK Albums Chart and at number three on the UK Independent Albums Chart. To support the album, music videos for the songs "Perfume", "Glasgow", "Gravity", and "Thinking About You" were released.
Production
Writing
The songs on Smitten were largely inspired by Heather Baron-Gracie's (pictured) past experiences with "the excitement and euphoria as well as the confusion and pain of early queer relationships".
In late 2023, Kerrang! magazine asked Pale Wave's lead singer and guitarist Heather Baron-Gracie about the album that would become Smitten, to which she replied: "All of my attention and energy is going into writing and recording our best album yet. Ultimately, that's about building a world that feels like Pale Waves, while also feeling completely different to anywhere we've inhabited before. We're creating another universe for our fans to explore, and for us to live in for a moment."[12]
When Baron-Gracie began to work on the record, she decided to take inspiration from the "pages of [her] long-forgotten teenage diary".[11] This encouraged her to thematically focus Smitten on "the excitement and euphoria as well as the confusion and pain of early queer relationships".[11] Baron-Gracie ultimately welcomed the chance to revisit the past, as it allowed her to realise that as people mature, they become more open to reflecting on parts of their lives that they may have previously blocked out.[13]
Recording
The album was co-produced by Simon Oscroft, Iain Berryman, and Hugo Silvani (lead guitarist of Pale Waves). Previously, Oscroft had helped produce songs by OneRepublic, the Naked and Famous, and the Aces,[14] whereas Berryman had co-produced fellow Dirty Hit artist Beabadoobee's album Beatopia (2022).[15] When asked by Rock Sound how the band decided to work with Oscroft, Baron-Gracie revealed: "I met Simon when we wrote 'Seeing Stars' together, and I instantly knew that I wanted to write the majority of the record with him ... As a writer and producer, he's so talented, and he understands what I'm going for. ... He's very optimistic and positive. That's what you need when you're writing music, because it can get quite challenging and intense."[10]
Half of the album was recorded in Los Angeles with Oscroft overseeing the process, whereas the other half was completed in London under the guidance of Berryman and Silvani.[10][16] Initially, Pale Waves planned to re-record the tracks they had worked on with Oscroft once they had returned to England. However, when they attempted to do so, Baron-Gracie felt that the "magic [had] disappeared" and that the new versions lacked the raw emotion of the originals. To resolve this, the band ultimately chose to incorporate the vocal takes Baron-Gracie had recorded with Oscroft into the final mix of the album.[10]
Pale Waves intended Smitten to be a "romantic, delicate, and feminine" record, whose jangly guitars and powerful choruses reflected the band's "retro-pop and gothic influences".[10] For this reason, many critics have noted sonic similarities between Smitten and the band's debut album, My Mind Makes Noises (2018).[17][18][19][20][21] Much of the album's sound was informed by the simplicity of country music like Kelsea Ballerini and Kacey Musgraves, whose recordings often rely on acoustic guitar and vocals alone.[10] In terms of singing style, Heather Baron-Gracie wanted her vocals to be less intense than those on Unwanted. She therefore gravitated toward the work of Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer of the Cranberries: "I've learned that my voice is more like [O'Riordan]," she noted in an interview. "It wants to be Celtic-sounding, free, and fragile, rather than hitting those solid, huge notes."[10] Critics have further compared the style of Smitten to the music of the Cure, the Sundays, and Cocteau Twins.[7][22][23]
The album opens with "Glasgow", a track about "leaving someone because you know it's no good for either of you anymore".[24] The song has been described as "bittersweet" and "'80s-sounding", with a "soaring" chorus.[24] The second song on the album, "This is Not a Love Song," was written about "about [Baron-Gracie's experience] being someone’s [romantic] experiment": Despite promises that their relationship would last, it ultimately fell apart due her suitor's lack of commitment. Though painful, the experience taught Baron-Gracie that she "should always be someone’s first choice" – a concept that is reflected in the song's lyrics.[17] The third track on the record, "Gravity" is a "bright", "dreamy", and "guitar-forward" song that focuses on the "torment of being dragged in different directions by a lover who can't choose between their relationship or their religion".[22][7] In an interview with The Honey Pop, Baron-Gracie explained: "It's about my relationship that I had with a woman who was struggling with her religion and her sexuality and, in the end, chose Jesus over me."[13]
"Thinking About You" is a "tender goth-pop excursion" that focuses on "a situation when someone leaves and you can't quite fully move on yet",[25] while the following track "Perfume" explores the excitement of new love and the "complexity that comes with the beginning of a relationship".[26] Baron-Gracie initially worried the lyrics for "Perfume" were too simple, but she later embraced their catchiness, likening them to the lyrics of the Spice Girls.[13] Prominently featuring "jangly, rhythmic guitar" and vocals "reminiscent of The Cranberries", "Perfume" sees "the band's gothic impulses coming to the fore".[27] Several publications – such as Atwood Magazine, NME, and Under the Radar– have further argued that the track evokes the retro-pop sound of the band's early releases.[26][28][29] In contrast, "Last Train Home" is more of a "contemplative ballad" which Atwood Magazine suggests "reverses the roles from 'Not a Love Song,' [by having] the singer mourning the demise of a past relationship they weren't able to commit to".[30]
"Kiss Me Again" explores fleeting romance, impulsive attraction, and the thrill of a one-night stand. Musically, mxdwn has argued that the track is infused with a "soft punk vibe" and that its melody "seems straight from a 2000s rom-com movie".[31] "Miss America" finds Baron-Gracie reflecting on past mistakes, while "Hate to Hurt You" explores the discomfort and regret that come with causing pain to others.[32] "Seeing Stars" has been described as a "dreamy slice of head-over-heels romance". The song was born after months of songwriting sessions that seen the band struggle to settle on a cohesive "vision" for the album.[17] But upon writing "Seeing Stars," the band agreed that the track "sound[ed] like the fourth record for Pale Waves".[30] For Baron-Gracie, "the rest [of the album] kind of followed" soon after, showing the band "the way [they] wanted to go".[33]Smitten closes with the "Imagination" and "Slow", which Dork contends function as a "one-two [finale] ... delivered with a scrappy alt-rock snarl".[17]
Title and cover
When thinking of a potential title for the album, Baron-Gracie wanted to use a single, definitive word that could capture the record's lyrical, musical, and thematic essence. Since the album centers around queer romance, she ultimately decided on the word "smitten." Baron-Gracie felt that the word not only captured the album's aesthetic but also had a "timeless" quality and a distinctly English charm. When the album title was settled upon, the band then turned their attention to the record's cover. In an interview with Rock Sound Baron-Gracie explained that the final result was conceived by her and her partner, Kelsi Luck:
Originally, I wanted to be lying in the English countryside as the sun was setting. I wanted it to feel quite lonely, but romantic. ... [Luck] creates all the visuals with me, and her ideas are usually way better than mine. She said, 'You can't just have that, that'll be boring. Why don't you have a chandelier hanging above you?' Immediately, I thought that was genius, so we made it happen. Somehow, it looks even better than it did in my head. Out of everything this band has done, the visuals for ‘Smitten’ are easily my favourite.[10]
Promotion and singles
On 24 May 2024, Pale Waves performed at the 100 Club in London under the pseudonym "Perfume" as part of Dork magazine's "Dork Night Out" event series; at this concert, they debuted the song of the same name.[34][35] "Perfume" was later released as the first single from Smitten, debuting on BBC Radio 1's "New Music Show" with Jack Saunders on 12 June 2024.[5] A video for the track, directed by Georgie Cowan-Turner, was also released at this time, alongside an announcement about the album itself.[36][37] The decision to release "Perfume" as the album's lead single was, according to Baron-Gracie, because "it just was the star of the show from the get-go. Everyone kind of thought the same. Everyone responded so well to 'Perfume' [and it] just felt right.[38] Upon its release, the single peaked at number 13 on Billboard Japan's Hot Overseas chart.[39] Blood Records later issued a limited-edition apple-shaped 7" record featuring "Perfume" on the a-side; this record was bundled and sold with a Blood Records variant of Smitten itself.[40][41]
The second single from the album, "Glasgow", was released on 12 July 2024, along with an accompanying music video, which features Heather Baron-Gracie packing a suitcase and driving off in a car, all while clad in a wedding dress.[24] The video, directed by Baron-Gracie, was filmed on a small budget and employed a production crew of only four people.[38][42] The third single, "Gravity", was released 15 August 2024. The music video for the song, also directed by Cowan-Turner, focuses on Baron-Gracie and her real-life partner Kelsi Luck "spend[ing] a tender day together".[7][43] The album's fourth single, "Thinking About You", was released on 13 September 2024, along with a video, directed by Luck.[8][44] On 24 September, 2024, Pale Waves released "Kiss Me Again" to build further anticipation for the album's then-imminent release.[9]
Pale Waves performed pre-release shows at the Gorilla bar in Manchester on 24 September and at the HMV Empire venue in Coventry on 25 September.[45][46] After an official release show at Rough Trade East on 27 September,[47] the band then performed a series of in-house acoustic shows at select record stores in the weeks that followed.[48] To further promote Smitten, Pale Waves also organised a headline tour of the UK, which ran from 3 to 18 October 2024.[6]
Smitten was met with mostly positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the release has an average score of 76 based on nine reviews, meaning that it has received "generally favorable reviews".[50] Fellow music aggregator AnyDecentMusic? likewise gave the album an average score of 7.6/10, based on ten reviews.[49]
Dork magazine awarded Smitten five out of five stars and called it "an album of soaring ambition and unstoppable pop hooks ready to be the go-to coming-of-age album of 2024".[51]DIY magazine argued that Smitten marks a return to the band's 80s-inspired synth-pop sound while also showcasing a more mature, autobiographical approach to songwriting when compared to their previous work. The magazine ultimately gave the record four out of five stars.[18] Josh Abraham of Clash wrote that "some may see this body of work and think the band have gone back to their roots, and others can see they are trying new soundscapes and lyricism, for this writer, it's both. That is ultimately the beauty of Smitten."[19] Edwin McFee of Hot Press wrote that the album was "brimming with bangers" and that "fans of '90s indie-pop will fall head over heels for" the record.[52]
Callum Foulds of The Line of Best Fit awarded the album seven out of ten stars, writing that "Smitten is Pale Waves returning to the sound that made them such an enigmatic new face in British music. What is different this time around is the sharpness at which the band pulls off this same sound. ... [The record] is the sound of a band infatuated with their art, ready for the future, and excited to be a part of it."[20] Ali Shutler of NME magazine awarded the album four out of five stars. The writer appreciated that Smitten does not seem indebted to the style of other musicians (something the band's previous records were criticised for), and as a result, it "sounds like a Pale Waves record".[54] Dylan Tuck of The Skinny awarded the album four out of five stars and complimented the record for pleasantly synthesising the "silken synth-pop" style of My Mind Makes Noises with the "punkish-pop" that characterised Who Am I? and Unwanted.[21]
Emma Wilkes of Kerrang awarded the album three out of five stars, writing that with this record, "the Manchester quartet have found a way to own their individuality. Gone is the slightly sickly Avril Lavigne worship of 2021's Who Am I? and 2022's Unwanted, replaced by a velvety, dreamy alt. pop sound that feels both more natural and more distinct". At the same time, Wilkes critiqued the album for its saccharine lyrical content and an "occasionally ... simplistic" sound.[53] Similarly, Tom Williams of The Telegraph wrote in a three-out-of-five star review that Smitten is Pale Waves "as you've always known them; painting big feelings in broad brush strokes, wearing their influences on their sleeve and prioritising power chords and festival-ready hooks over nuance and specificity. ... But too often, the band lean on simplistic similes [or] metaphors ... that keep them at arm's length. Four albums in, the band are still no closer to honing in on a sound that’s recognizably theirs."[56]
Commercial performance
Smitten was released on 27 September 2024 by the independent record labelDirty Hit on vinyl, CD, cassette, and as a digital download.[57] In addition to the standard LP release, Dirty Hit also partnered with Rough Trade, HMV, Blood Records, and a number of independent UK record stores to a series of limited color variants.[41][58][59][60]
↑ This release, despite sharing the same catalog number as the burgundy variant, was pressed on "gold marble" vinyl. It also was sold with a bonus apple-shaped 7" record featuring "Perfume" and a demo of "Miss America".[41]
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