Dork
  • Music News
    • Latest News
    • Album Release Schedule
  • Features
    • Features & Interviews
    • Artist Guides
    • In Photos
  • New Music
    • Hype
    • Hype News
    • Hype Features & Interviews
    • Hype Reviews
  • Playlists
    • Playlists
    • Dork Playlist
    • The Cut
    • Hype
      • Cover Story
      • Hype Playlist
  • Reviews
    • Album & EP Reviews
    • Live Reviews
  • Radio
    • Home
    • Shows
      • Down With Boring
    • Playlist
    • Listen Again
    • Podcast
      • Apple Podcasts
      • Spotify
      • Google Podcasts
      • Stitcher
      • aCast
      • TuneIn
  • Magazine
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Print Subscriptions
    • Print + Digital Subscriptions
  • Shop
  • Supporters
    • Support Dork
    • Supporter Only Content
    • Digital Library
HTML5 RADIO PLAYER PLUGIN WITH REAL VISUALIZER powered by Sodah Webdesign Dexheim
Dork
  • Music News
    • Latest News
    • Album Release Schedule
  • Features
    • Features & Interviews
    • Artist Guides
    • In Photos
  • New Music
    • Hype
    • Hype News
    • Hype Features & Interviews
    • Hype Reviews
  • Playlists
    • Playlists
    • Dork Playlist
    • The Cut
    • Hype
      • Cover Story
      • Hype Playlist
  • Reviews
    • Album & EP Reviews
    • Live Reviews
  • Radio
    • Home
    • Shows
      • Down With Boring
    • Playlist
    • Listen Again
    • Podcast
      • Apple Podcasts
      • Spotify
      • Google Podcasts
      • Stitcher
      • aCast
      • TuneIn
  • Magazine
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Print Subscriptions
    • Print + Digital Subscriptions
  • Shop
  • Supporters
    • Support Dork
    • Supporter Only Content
    • Digital Library
  • Album & EP Reviews

Pale Waves – Who Am I?

  • Stephen Ackroyd
  • February 11, 2021

Label: Dirty Hit Records
Released: 12th February 2021


Pale Waves only have one song. You’ve heard that one before, right? It’s a refrain that’s (rather unfairly) been repeated by some from the point they had more than one track to their name, carried through to their debut album and beyond. The truth is far more complex.

What Pale Waves excel in, Dear Reader, is a command of aesthetic. Their central pairing – Heather Baron-Gracie and Ciara Doran have always had a strong sense of their own sonic identity – a unifying filter laid heavy across everything they do. It’s a strength, not a weakness, and one which elevates their second album ‘Who Am I?’ considerably. A record that feels to be as much about the band’s self-discovery as people as it is their artistic evolution, a hard left swing into late-90s alt-pop wouldn’t have felt like the most obvious route to take, and yet it works brilliantly.

While many will reach straight for comparisons to cultural touchpoints like Avril Lavigne, there’s a much broader, more organic heart to ‘Who Am I?’. ‘Fall To Pieces’, ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘You Don’t Own Me’ are all huge – definitively Pale Waves but with a grungier, bubblegum heart. With a confessional tone but a wide-open heart, the sweeping ‘Odd Ones Out’ nails the leftfield power ballad, while the closing title track pulls at the heartstrings with guile. 

‘Who Am I?’ is a lot of things. It’s a pop record from the recent past, an album that looks deep within but projects strongly outwards too. But what it most certainly isn’t is a one-trick pony. Pale Waves were always better than that.

Stephen Ackroyd
4.0 rating
4/5
Total Score
Related Topics
  • Pale Waves
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Features

Black Honey: “When you’re scared, that’s when you know that you’re saying something important”

  • March 16, 2023
View Post
  • Features

NOAHFINNCE: “You shouldn’t have to compromise who you are to make other people happy”

  • March 17, 2023
View Post
  • Features

Venbee: “It’s okay if things aren’t working out; that’s a message I’m stuck on sharing”

  • March 17, 2023
Latest issue
Latest
    • Music News
    VLURE have shared their new single “born from hard truths, false promises and the crushing realities of working to other peoples’ agenda”, ‘This Fantasy’
    • Music News
    Cucamaras have dropped their first new music of 2023, ‘Cotton Wool’
    • Music News
    Radiohead are talking about getting back together for new material in the “next couple of years”
    • Music News
    Sabrina Carpenter, Lana Del Rey, VLURE and more – this is what’s fresh on the Dork Radio playlist this week
    • In Photos
    In photos: Sports Team, Prima Queen and Jessica Winter bring home day five of SXSW 2023

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get pop nonsense to your inbox.

Dork
  • Contact
  • Jobs
  • Privacy
© 2016-2021 The Bunker Publishing Ltd

Input your search keywords and press Enter.