Manchester-based pop / rock / indie outfit Pale Waves have announced the release of their fourth studio album ‘Smitten‘. They’ve also shared their new single “Perfume“, alongside a video.
The follow-up to their 2022 LP Unwanted, will be out on September 20th via Dirty Hit Records, and sees the band delve into their Northern roots while exploring a more reflective and romantic sound. Pre-order your copy here.
While Pale Waves’ first three albums focussed on the band’s immediate present, Smitten is a lot more preoccupied with past lives – some more recent than others. Written two years after Unwanted, and after the tour that followed, vocalist Heather Baron-Gracie found herself in a headspace where she could finally breathe, and reflect, like peeling through the pages of a long-forgotten teenage diary and being surprised by what she found. “I found myself writing about not just a certain time period, but my whole life, from years ago,” she says. “When I fall in love, I fall deep, and it’s interesting to me that you can feel so fascinated and smitten with someone and then they can become a total stranger. So I feel like Smitten really summarised perfectly what I felt for others at a certain point.”
Of the new single, Heather added: “’Perfume’ is the perfect introduction into the new world we’ve created. It’s queer, feminine and romantic and it encapsulates the essence of Smitten.”
Check out “Perfume” below, followed by the album’s tracklist and artwork.
Pale Waves ‘Smitten’ Tracklist:
- Glasgow
- Not a Love Song
- Gravity
- Thinking About You
- Perfume
- Last Train Home
- Kiss Me Again
- Miss America
- Hate to Hurt You
- Seeing Stars
- Imagination
- Slow
Photo Credit: Kelsi Luck
