Following the release of their debut album My Mind Makes Noise in 2018, Manchester quartet Pale Waves won the hearts of indie lovers across the country. Their coming-of-age album offered the likes of Eighteen and Television Romance, two tracks that pinned the band firmly on the ones-to-watch map. And signed to the same label as fellow Manchester legends, The 1975, the success of any future Pale Waves material was almost certainly guaranteed. After testing the waters with a handful of singles over the last twelve months, Who Am I? holds Heather Baron-Gracie’s personal life up for inspection under the microscope. Focusing on her struggles with identity and acceptance, the notion of self-reflection underpins the very definition of this release.
As the grungier big sister of My Mind Makes Noise, opening with the polished and preppie sounds of Change and Fall To Pieces makes complete sense. Nodding effortlessly to their earlier sound whilst plucking some of the punkier riffs heard in the likes of Avril Lavigne’s Complicated, it’s an unassuming blend of both the new and the old. Radio-ready hooks like those seen from the band’s debut release still linger throughout parts of Who Am I?, but it’s the new rawer, grungy notes that now dominate these parts. She’s My Religion carries some of those influences to the fore, and it’s here where we begin to understand the narrative arc behind this record.
Over the last three years, both Heather Baron-Gracie and Ciara Doran have emerged as open members of the LGBTQ+ community. Speaking on She’s My Religion, Heather says, “I’ve been open about my sexuality for a while, but I’ve never put it into a song… I wanted to write a song that used pronouns because for so many years I didn’t in my music, and now I realise how important that is, to normalise LGBTQ relationships in a world that needs it. Love who you wanna love and embrace it.”
This notion of self-reflection is one that dominates this eleven-track ensemble. Easy delivers a short snap of the vibrant pop sound we are all too familiar with, before diving back into the copy-paste pop-punk formula. The angsty admissions in the chorus of You Don’t Own Me draw perfectly upon on Heather’s growing pains in misogyny-stricken society, whilst I Just Needed You explores how she falls too deeply into love and relationships. But it’s in this album’s final two tracks where Baron-Gracie truly relinquishes control. “I know I keep you up at night, it’s hard on you most of the time,” she admits in an open letter to her Mother in the first verse of penultimate track, Run To. Who Am I?- the softer ballad that allows Baron-Gracie to lay her demons out for all to see – is the beautifully intimate closing track that seemingly re-ties all of her loose ends.
Delivering a nostalgic trip down memory lane for those raised on millennium pop-punk, Who Am I? is the brazen statement of acceptance than every young person needs to hear. Pale Waves have combined tales of love and heartbreak with wider societal issues in a way which translates effortlessly to the indie-pop-punk realm. They may have started out unsure of who they were, but it seems that now, they’ve got it all figured out.
This piece was first published in February 2021 for Only A Northern One
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