Album Review: The Pale White - 'The Big Sad'
The Pale White step up with a new album of hard hitting rock and heartfelt ballads.
Following on from their euphoric leading single ‘Lost In The Moment’ Newcastle’s The Pale White release new album ‘The Big Sad’ at on the 18th of April, alongside another deliciously layered offering with second single ‘The Final Exit’, which is a superbly crafted anthem. The strings really give the single a majestic levity, and the sharp, sudden change in tempo as it grinds to a sudden halt is expertly timed for dramatic effect, leaving you wondering how the tempo will change next. As the band outline themselves: Speaking on the track, frontman Adam Hope says, “From lovers, to strangers. Final Exit is the last goodbye to someone you’ve shared a huge portion of your life with. You both don’t quite know how you got here, but you’re both here nevertheless. To me, this song is a hypothetical reminder to love and allow yourself to be loved every day.”
This raw emotion highlights the confidence the band are now exuding, having for the first time made their music entirely on their own independent terms: self-produced and self-confident. As singer Adam said of the album “The Big Sad: an album born from the ashes of dark times, but representing a beacon of light for the future”.
The band are central to the resurgence of musical talent from the North East, having been touted as “one of the North East’s hottest groups” by NME. They have had high profile support slots on tours by the Pixies and Frank Black most notably, and their recent 10 date UK tour saw them bring their powerful raw sound to new audiences and tease songs from the new album.
The melancholic melody of ‘Preparing For The Big Sad’ is sentimental in contrast to their more trademark hard hitting rock, and would lend itself well to smaller venues with its slower, more sedate tone giving the album a beautiful tone just after the half way point.
On ‘I’m Sorry’, the lyric: ‘I never did find infinite pleasure’ strikes a chord with its sense of longing for pleasure, as if there is a a void that cannot be filled.
“We are, by nature, a rock band,” begins Adam of an album enriched by deeply felt nods to the artists they adore (from R.E.M. to Queens of The Stone Age via Elliott Smith). “I'm not gonna try and hide that. And there are rock moments on the album. But I wanted to go a bit left,” he says of songs he began writing over two years ago, in between the release of the trio’s debut album Infinite Pleasure (2021) and 2023 EP A New Breed. “Well, I say 'wanted'. It wasn't a conscious choice. It just happened. And I let it happen.”
The Pale White show their softer, sensitive side on ‘January, Please’, with its tender notes on loneliness and and the sense of feeling lost, which are brutal in their honesty: ‘Save me from myself/coz I don’t wanna go to the circus on my own’. Its vulnerability is somehow at odds with their rock n roll swagger they are known for. The track with its slightly melancholic yet uplifting line: ‘We could make it to June if January lets us through’, it’s whimsical feeling followed by a cobweb dusting whack of the drums that compliments the misery nicely with its emphatic intensity.
Adding to the majesty of their sound on ‘The Big Sad’, the humble Teesside lads fully wanted to truly express themselves with the albums cover art. In an intensely personal artistic vision, the album sleeve shows a hand painted model by the Hope brothers’ dad Joe. This was inspired by a famous photograph from the 1960’s of a Wallsend street of a giant ship launching from the local shipyard, filling the horizon. This sentiment beautifully epitomises The Pale White and their art: a band with a raw talent for capturing emotional and articulating it with a simple beauty, as they have done so superbly on this album, which is sure to mesmerise on the live stage in the near future.
Words by Brendan Sharp
