Album Review: My Mind Makes Noises by Pale Waves

Whilst iconic performers such as Siouxsie Sioux may have played a part in Pale Waves ' sound and vision, lead singer Heather Baron-Gracie and drummer Ciara Doran bonded over artists as diverse as The Cranberries and Prince to Lucy Rose when they met during university and formed the band. This rich array of influences has focused down to a clean, assured sound and a distinct lyrical voice that runs through the quartet's debut My Mind Makes Noises. "I was eighteen when I met you, poured my heart out, spilled my whole truth," Baron-Gracie wails on the album opener, "Eighteen" and she continues to share her experiences of strenuous, challenging relationships with love, lust and other people over thirteen further tracks.

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Showing both sonic and lyrical growth from their first EP, Pale Waves' debut album 'My Mind Makes Noises' is filled to the brim with hooky pop choruses centred around that well-trodden songwriting topic of falling in and out of love. But while it's hardly new subject matter, from the first glossy synth-pop chorus of album opener 'Eighteen', it's clear this is a band keen to subvert your expectations. 'Drive' is a stomping electropop wonder whereas 'Red' has a thumping europop-esque chorus that reaches dizzying heights.

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Young love is pop culture's lifeblood; the amount of art that's been made in its name is staggering. Yet somehow artists keep finding fresh spins on the joy, heartache and anxiety that come with it.   It was certainly a creative catalyst for Pale Waves singer Heather Baron-Gracie. "I was 18 when I met you / Poured my heart out spilled all my truth / I finally felt like I could feel for the first time," she sings on "Eighteen," the opening track off the Manchester quartet's debut album. As far as thesis statements go, it's pretty clear ….

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A sensational singles band, the sheer adrenalin rush of Pale Waves' outsider pop benefits from the depth offered by the full-length format on stellar debut album 'My Mind Makes Noises'. 'Eighteen' is the pristine opener, while 'There's A Honey' and 'Noises' follow hot on its stiletto heels. Battle-hardened by lengthy tours across the land and beyond, Pale Waves bring that energy into the studio on a crisp, effervescent debut LP.

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"W hat do you see when you look at me?" asks Heather Baron-Gracie on the Manchester quartet Pale Waves's debut single, There's a Honey. That's easy: a resplendent, classic goth. Were she to ask, though, "What do you hear when you listen to me?", the answer would be, confusingly: perfect millennial pop. Pale Waves's black-clad central songwriting duo, Baron-Gracie and Ciara Doran, are perhaps the apotheosis of the death of musical tribes among digital natives.

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I t's fair to say a striking disparity exists between Pale Waves' appearance and the way they sound. Singer Heather Baron-Gracie and drummer Ciará Doran look like goths. Not a bit goth, as in a liking for black clothes, not goth in the tasteful latterday fashion-magazine sense, but goth as in Whitby-weekender, pint-of-snakebite-and-black-please, off-to-a-club-called-Cobwebz-to-wave-your-arms-around-to-Bela-Lugosi's-Dead goth: a riot of black lipstick, white foundation and fishnet.

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