PALE WAVES - EIGHTEEN

[6.40]

After one 1975 tour, one Jukebox appearance, about seventy-million singles, and, at last, one album, here's "Eighteen"...

Edward Okulicz: This is the one. This is what Charli XCX should have been by combining guitars with gothy obesssions. This song takes all the great things about a murderer's row of good songs and just one-ups them in every way -- two that come to mind are "Clarity" by Zedd and "Heaven Sent" by Killing Heidi, but the list could stretch on for paragraphs. Songs with anthemic qualities that are a little bit doomed at the same time and don't care about that and don't regret one thing. The lyrics to the chorus describe a first love, but as I've got older I've learned that these ideas don't stop being true, and in fact get even more so. Falling in love doesn't change; some of us are lucky enough to get better at it over time, but every time you have that moment where you see someone for the first time, or you see someone in a new way for the first time, it's a revelation, and that's the same whether you're 18 or 28 or 38 or 118. Heather Baron-Gracie is singing the life I wanted at 18 and still want two decades on. The performance is a masterpiece of tension and timing and pop hooks and guitar crunch, but on top of that, it's just a perfect piece of pop songwriting. [10]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The verses brim with a romanticism that peaks early on: a declaration from Heather Baron-Gracie that she can "finally see in color." The arpeggiating synths and reverberating drums conjure up a dreamlike state that her vocal melody cuts through: a representation of one's thoughts as they transition from "is this happening?" to "this is happening." That she doesn't repeat the melody in the second verse is heartwarming. This absence acknowledges the ecstasy of that honeymoon stage while allowing the ensuing parts of the relationship to feel just as meaningful; the second verse is still dreamlike, still intimate, still life-affirming. The chorus finds the fog clearing, almost blindsiding one with how direct the singing and instrumentation is. Here, Baron-Gracie provides a diaristic recounting of how much her lover means to her, sounding like Avril Lavigne during this endearing confessional. Hearing her profess that she "poured [her] heart out, spilled all [her] truth" makes one want to do the same. The pop-punk spirit of that chorus may scream teenager, but "Eighteen" understands that the people we cherish from those times -- or any time -- stick with us for eternity. [7]

Alex Clifton: "Eighteen" sounds like a lost Killers track full of youthful ebullience. Some songs remind you of being young and have you lost in thought of what that was once like; others put you back directly in the moment, bringing forth vivid sense memories you thought you'd lost. For me, "Eighteen" is the latter, throwing me back to a time when every day felt like a new kind of heartbreak while losing myself in whatever new song I'd found. It's a good kind of ache to remember that kind of youthfulness. I'm never going to be that girl again, but she'll live on in both my memory and in songs like this; in the end, that's all I can ask for. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: Throbbing rock with a Moroder-esque pulse that explodes into Paramore-colored rainbows on the chorus. If I was, in fact, 18, I'd probably be way into this. Since I'm almost 48, I'm just moderately into this. [6]

Juan F. Carruyo: Received nostalgia isn't what it once was. This sounds like third-rate Paramore. [2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is an unholy fusion of Body Talk Robyn, Speak Now Taylor Swift, and Days Are Gone HAIM with all of the interesting edges or imperfections shaved off, leaving the most deeply radical centrist indie pop record I've heard in a long while. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: I continue to dislike "Call Your Girlfriend" on lyrical grounds, but it's still very obvious how crucial the melodic lift on "that you just met somebody new" or "the only way your heart will mend" or "and then you let her down easy" (Robyn has about six per song) is to the chorus, and how flat a similar chorus would sound if it didn't have one. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Rattling synth arpeggios lift from the ground as searing guitar swings, and then is swept in a big, goofy hug by the limber, devastating drums. The bass silently bridges the gap alongside Heather Baron-Gracie, and both watch the guitar and drums race on ahead, then swing back as Heather rides it on the way to the beginning of her first relationship. [8]

Alfred Soto: For once dampening the synths for a sugar rush of guitars and harmonies, "Eighteen" takes Tegan and Sara into Undertones territory. Like good pop punk, it distills matters to essentials: "I finally felt like I feel for the first time" -- boom. [7]

Josh Love: Pale Waves present a fabulously goth visual aesthetic but their music is closer to brighter synthpop practitioners like Tegan and Sara or Carly Rae (even Chvrches is moodier). "Eighteen" itself engages in a similar bait and switch; at first blush it seems clearly like a rueful lament -- "I was just 18 when I met you/Poured my heart out, spilled all my truth." Yet the lyrics never deliver the expected betrayal or breakup, and so we're surprisingly left with either a love that's still thriving or one that can be looked back upon without bitterness or regret. [7]

Claire Biddles: Pale Waves' debut single (and my Amnesty pick for 2017!) "There's a Honey" was a big ol' perfect ten -- dually a mission statement for their teen-dream goth aesthetic and a self-contained delight. Each single since then (and there have been a lot, thanks to the over-eager contemporary rollout process) has felt like a watered-down version of that initial sharp hit; same shiny Cure-esque guitar waves, same vocal inflections, same song structure, but less magic. "Eighteen" is no exception to the tried-and-very-tested Pale Waves formula. Being a descendent of such crystallised pop perfection means it retains some sparkle. There's a couple of lovely moments -- the couplet "We sat on the corner kissing each other/Felt like I could finally see in colour" is cute -- but overall the lyrics are a little clunky ("Finally felt like I could feel for the first time," yikes) and the transition between sections is too sudden, too formulaic. They've definitely got something but I'd love to see more variety on the second album. [5]

Jonathan Bradley: Pale Waves makes glistening, tear-struck synth-pop that aches like MUNA and quivers like Matt Healy. Even that alone is not nothing -- good bands have survived on finding one sound and doing it well -- and "Eighteen" has more than that. Moments of Heather Baron-Gracie's narrative detail catch on adolescent crisis: "The city depresses me, but you try to be everything I need/We sat on the corner kissing each other," is drifting emotionalism worthy of a YA novel or a teen movie voiceover. Her tones curl like cellophane: gaudy, thin, and brilliant. That this band is capable of sharper hooks and more potently melodic tracks speaks well for "Eighteen"; even when their inspiration is meanly apportioned, it still shines so bright. [7]

Maxwell Cavaseno: As Dirty Hit distressingly grows into a factory of 1975-soundalike music, Pale Waves were merciful enough to grant us a reprieve from that and to give us their single which sounds the least like The 1975! It's unfortunately marked by Heather Baron-Gracie giving one of her worst vocal performances yet, a continuous grating whine and a mix that feels like an amorphously sleek pop-punk drive to earnestness paired with inane, cheesy lyrics. But at the same time, given the fact that the band has been in a subtle danger of falling victim to perception of simply being a vehicle of extra ideas from their label's cash cow, you have to commend the them for deviating just slightly enough from that mold. Should we be so lucky, maybe they'll get even bolder with time and find an identity that may stand parallel, or even superior. [3]

Nicholas Donohoue: On the level of "Eighteen" being a universal anthemic love song I'm not moved, but I fully see the person who would love this and I have no reason not to be happy for them. [5]

Will Rivitz: This song is the Biggest goddamn Mood I've heard all year. Starting off the song -- and My Mind Makes Noises as a whole -- with the line "This city depresses me"? Big Mood. Doing that over an uncompromisingly triumphant major-key instrumental that only gets louder and more expansive from there? Bigger Mood. Encapsulating the entire scope of young love in a fifteen-second chunk, in which "I finally felt like I could feel for the first time" somehow loses all semblance of cliché thanks to a delivery that teeters on the brink of euphoria before the bridge pushes it over to the other side? Biggest Mood. This is the last twelve lines of "The Fish" mixed with Gerard Way mixed with Carly Rae Jepsen, and I do not make that last comparison lightly. Even if "Give Yourself A Try" had lyrics that fit its sonic tone instead of Matty Healy's too-wise-for-you clunkers, it still wouldn't pack nearly the thunderbolt as this, and I gave that a [10] too, so... [10]

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