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Smitten Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 Pale Waves On their second album, 2021’s   Who Am I? , and follow-up   Unwanted   (2022), Pale Waves presented a tough, punk-pop- and rock-informed exterior for singer Heather Baron-Gracie’s emotionally bare confessionals. Fourth album   Smitten , however, finds the Manchester quartet back wandering through the gothic spires and ethereal dream pop that had marked 2018 debut   My Mind Makes Noises . Epic, swooning, and romantic, the likes of “Perfume,” “Gravity,” and “Seeing Stars” sparkle with an iridescent color palette, blending shades of jangling ’80s indie pop, Cure-like atmospherics, and lush, Cocteau Twins-inspired washes of sound. “I wanted this record to sound very British,” Baron-Gracie tells Apple Music. “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 th