British alt-rock band Pale Waves, consisting of Heather Baron-Gracie (vocals/rhythm guitar), Ciara Doran (drums), Hugo Silvani (guitar) and Charlie Wood (bass), released their fourth studio album “Smitten” via Dirty Hit on September 27, 2024.
The album is their first body of work in two years since the 2022 album “Unwanted” and comprises 12 songs.
The band recorded half of the album with producer Simon Oscroft in Los Angeles, and the other half with producer Iain Berryman and Hugo Silvani in London.
But, the band incorporated the vocal takes, which Heather Baron-Gracie recorded with Simon Oscroft in Los Angeles, into the final mix.
The band lead singer Heather Baron-Gracie said of the album, “We've listened to and lived with these songs for so long now. And it's the best feeling when they get put out there into the world. And everyone else gets to have them, and they get to have their moment and their experience with them, and when we get to go up on stage and play these songs live, it creates a whole different life for them. Everyone gets to hear them for the first time and it kind of reminds me of that moment and the magic that I felt when I listened to them for the first time.”
She added, “I found myself writing about not just a certain time period, but my whole life, from years ago. 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.”
Heather Baron-Gracie told Apple Music about the album, “I wanted this record to sound very British. The visuals of the album came first for me before the music. I wanted it to look grand, like the English countryside, and romantic and feminine and just beautiful. That came before any of the music. Once I had that imagery, I moved on to the music.”
She continued, “I don't think I could have written these songs at any other point in my life until now, I would have justified a lot of things and made excuses. I thought it was important for me to look back at a lot of my life, because I've had some huge experiences that I haven't ever written about. I felt comfortable, and I felt in a good position in my life to be able to do that this time around.”
Heather Baron-Gracie explained track-by-track for the album via Apple Music.
“Glasgow” “A lot of the songs are looking back at certain moments. 'Glasgow' is about a situation I had with another woman. It was a quite brief encounter, but it felt amazing and then, all of a sudden, it came crashing down. We both had a realization that this definitely wasn't going to work, that our personalities were never going to work together and, if we carried this on, we would've burnt everything down in flames. It could have just gone totally toxic and, at that point, I just don't think I was ready to add any more toxic feelings into my life.”
“Not a Love Song” “This is a 'fuck you' song. I fall hard and I fall deep, and I did in this situation. Behind closed doors, I was the one and only, I was the person that this person was willing to commit to and she adored me, but then in front of everyone else I was nobody. That really frustrated me, and I would question myself, 'Am I not good enough? Why do you want me behind closed doors, but then you don't when anyone else is around, and then you chase boys to just piss me off?' I had to list all of these amazing things that I could've been and that she'll never be able to get from me anymore.”
“Gravity” “The story in 'Gravity' is about me and another woman. She was religious but also secretly gay. Her family were very religious too, and she couldn't choose between me and her religion and her family and her world outside of me. In the end, it was too much for her and she chose her religion over me. I wanted the song to feel quite religious so that's why it has all the stacks of the harmonies. You can imagine those harmonies being sung in church.”
“Thinking About You” “We've had multiple versions of all of the songs on this record. I think that's why it's our strongest record, because these songs have been worked through again and again and again and had so many different personalities and so many changes. So much thought and consideration has gone into them. The original version of this was a straight-up acoustic ballad. In the studio, everyone started to say that it didn't fit with the rest of the record, but I was so attached to this song from day one. I felt a weird connection to it, so we had to rework it with this guitar riff. It was perfect, it made the record better.”
“Perfume” “'Perfume' had to be the first single for Smitten. It was the star of the show for me. It sets up this expectation for the record and it captures everything that's going to follow. It's romantic, it's feminine, it's dreamy, it's grand. It paints the perfect picture. It's all the things I love about music in this one track. 'Perfume' is about that infatuation you get, it's a need, it's a want. It's lust as well. It's all these falling-in-love moments captured in a song. The lyrics and the music take you on that roller coaster that you go through when you meet someone for the first time.”
“Last Train Home” “It's about a situation when I was just figuring out my sexuality and this was the first girl that I was figuring that out with. She had already embraced it and was confident with who she was and her sexuality, but I definitely wasn't there. I couldn't commit to her the way she wanted me to. I wasn't ready to walk down the street holding her hand and I kept her a secret. I feel incredibly guilty and ashamed about that, but I just wasn't ready. I broke her heart because I wasn't confident or strong enough yet. It took me a few years to get there and to get comfortable, but I definitely wasn't ready when I was in my early twenties. But everyone's different. Some people instantly feel comfortable with it. Others take a few years. Others take decades.”
“Kiss Me Again” “I wanted a really fun song on the record. We've been rehearsing this, and it's really fun to play live as well. It was about a time where I knew this girl was just having me on for fun and as her little experiment but, at the time, I just didn't care because I just wanted her attention and her touch. She was willing to give it to me, and I wasn't willing to think about it at all. I just dived in deep and didn't really think about it. And I didn't want to, either.”
“Miss America” “It's definitely the most aggressive song on the record. We had so many dreamy songs that we felt we had the space to write something a bit more aggressive that would translate really well live. We always think about how things are going to be received live, and people love an upbeat, aggressive moment in a set. We like to intertwine a lot of things in our music. The lyrics are very delicate and honest and raw, about me holding my hands up about being a shit person. But then we contrast it with this music that is very in your face, punchy, and aggressive.”
“Hate to Hurt You” “'Hate to Hurt You' was the last track that we wrote for Smitten. A lot of the songs are quite yearning and heartfelt. I love that kind of music. That's what I listen to the most. But I felt like we had to give people a moment where they could dance. It's about a situation where I want to leave, but I feel awful doing so. I'm kind of pushing and pulling: I don't want to be here anymore. I'm looking at other people, but I respect you as person and I don't want to upset you. I don't want to cause you harm, but I'm causing you harm by staying in this longer than necessary.”
“Seeing Stars” “After we finished touring Unwanted, I started going into the studio and writing. I didn't know it was going to be Smitten at the time, it went through loads of different genres and cycles and it was only when we wrote 'Seeing Stars' that we realized: This is the kind of sound that we want for our fourth record. It was those big jangly guitars. Previously, I was trying for a more rock sound, and then I instantly heard these guitars and I was like, 'Oh, that's what heaven sounds like…OK, this is what the record is going to be.'”
“Imagination” “I was taking inspiration from a girl that I was infatuated with in high school who was straight. I was never going to be able to receive an ounce of her love in that way. Nor did I ever want to admit it to her because I knew that she was straight, she wasn't queer. So, for me, the only way we could exist together was in my imagination, and that's what inspired that song: when you know something is unachievable and it's never going to happen. It's that realization.”
“Slow” “'Slow' is very anthemic, and it felt like it had to be the song that we finished the record on. I didn't want to end on the slow sad song, because we've done that in the past. We wrote this quite early on in the process, and we changed a lot of things about it in the studio. It was definitely more of an aggressive track previously, but I thought it sounded a bit too dad rock, so I wanted to strip away a lot of things about it. I replaced the riff and we replaced a lot of the other guitars. I changed the structure and I changed the lyrics as well. It is quite a defiant way to end the album. It's kind of like, 'OK, the record is done. I've said everything I need to say. I'm out of here now.'”
