Noises - Pale Waves Review

Pale Waves really built themselves up over the last year, coming off a major tour with The 1975 that gave them lots of exposure, the excellent singles Television Romance, New Year's Eve and There's a Honey. They also put out the ALL THE THINGS I NEVER SAID EP this year, with the standout track The Tide showcasing the best of their shiny guitar driven pop, and the single Kiss also earlier this year. Now they have this single, Noises, which starts off with some major key light and low guitar strumming backed by the 80s-inspired synthes they got initially from The 1975's production on their first couple tracks. After the first verse of forgettable "emo" lyrics (seemingly sung with a smile) they launch into the standard melancholy but grand guitar riff progression backed by glittering bell-like synths that is almost overused in their music. The addition of a powerful surging bassline (from a keyboard or a real bass, its hard to tell) certainly livens it up, but its still a bit too slow. The smoothly sung lyrics are a bit simple but they do mean a lot about self esteem, and then the interesting break for the lo-fi bridge and then guitar blast afterwards works well. After that the song blasts back into the chorus and wins off well. If the new album "My Mind Makes Noises" is all like this and may be decent, with not enough variation between songs and a small amount of experimentation, but hopefully less really mopey songs. Sadly, it seems they really haven't recaptured the spark of their first couple singles, so they'll need to do a lot of work to catapult themselves to greater heights.