Pale WavesWho Am I?

As protegées of The 1975, Pale Waves were one of the few 2010s acts that could earnestly lay claim to “bursting onto the scene.”

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With stellar new-wave throwback There’s A Honey and their magnum opus Television Romance setting the table, the Manchester quartet were poised to ascend to a similar stature of that held by the very band that signed them.

Alas: 2018’s My Mind Makes Noises, while serviceable, felt like too little too late following their explosive 2017 arrival. Despite already playing to massive crowds, there was a growing sense we were real-time witnesses to a flash in the pan. Imagine the surprise, then, when the band emerged from the woodwork late last year to reveal an imminent second LP. Here was their chance, finally, to truly prove they were more than the one-two succession of their debut singles. True to its name, however, Who Am I? is an identity crisis incarnate.

In lieu of their gothically-tinged 80s pop-rock, Pale Waves have instead opted for nondescript gloss that bares no resemblance to their past.

If you’re old enough to remember it, imagine Allison from The Breakfast Club turning up to school one day looking like Claire. This isn’t a makeover in the sense of removing your glasses and letting your hair down, it’s a transmogrification in the spirit of Face/Off. In lieu of their gothically-tinged 80s pop-rock, Pale Waves have instead opted for nondescript gloss that bares no resemblance to their past. Inexplicably, their newfound direction comes across as even less mature than their younger days; wishy-washy by design, milquetoast in execution. Besides everything else, kitsch-into-cool Avril Lavigne worship is already being done far better by fellow millennials Soccer Mommy and Beabadoobee right now. Change and Wish U Were Here, as a result, feel like copies of copies. Pale Waves were once proclaimed “the sound of 2018.” In 2021, they’re just a sound–and a blip on the radar, at that.

STANDOUT TRACKS: You Don’t Own Me, I Just Needed You
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Demi Lovato, Imagine Dragons, Avril Lavigne