Pale Waves have shared a new single ‘Gravity — check it out below.
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The song serves as the third preview of the Manchester band’s fourth album ‘Smitten’, which is due for release on September 20 via Dirty Hit (pre-order/pre-save here).
Built around bright, dreamy guitar strums, ‘Gravity”s optimistic soundscape contradicts the moodier lyrics, which outline the torment of being dragged in different directions by a lover who can’t choose between their relationship or their religion: “She’s pulling me like gravity everywhere she goes / Am I in too deep, or out of my reach?” frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie sings.
Speaking on the track, Baron-Gracie said: “Gravity is about a woman who chose Jesus over me. It took the longest of all of the songs on the album to finish, I think we must have rewritten it millions of times to get it to where it is now.”
Check it out below.
Pale Waves recently announced a UK headline tour for this autumn, including a gig at Here at Outernet in London. Find any remaining tickets here, and see the full schedule below.
In July, the band released a euphoric break-up single ‘Glasgow’, which preceded ‘Perfume’ — the lead single from ‘Smitten’. The forthcoming album will follow on from 2022’s ‘Unwanted’, and was written over two years between the US and the UK.
“I found myself writing about not just a certain time period, but my whole life, from years ago,” said Baron-Gracie in a previous statement.
“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.”
Last November, the band revealed that they were working on the record – and called it their “best yet”.
Pale Waves’ 2024 UK tour dates are:
OCTOBER
03 – The Waterfront, Norwich
04 – O2 Academy, Liverpool
05 – Neighbourhood Festival, Manchester
06 – Rock City, Nottingham
08 – Chalk, Brighton
09 – O2 Academy, Bristol
10 – Foundry, Sheffield
11 – Fat Sam’s, Dundee
13 – SWG3, Glasgow
14 – Boiler Shop, Newcastle
15 – O2 Institute, Birmingham
17 – Here at Outernet, London
‘Smitten’, will be Pale Waves’ fourth album, following 2022’s ‘Unwanted‘, which received a four-star review from NME. “Raising the shipwreck of pop-punk from yesteryear and re-fitting it as the flagship for those who feel genuinely maligned, Pale Waves’ third album is anything but ‘Unwanted’.”