Best albums of 2023: #5 Pale Blue Eyes “This house”

Things are getting real now on this list of my favourite albums of 2023. The number five album comes care of a band that I’d never even heard of three months ago and now I can’t imagine this year without it.

Pale Blue Eyes were formed just a handful of years ago in southwestern England when married couple Lucy and Matt Board met Aubrey Simpson at a music festival. They recorded the bulk of their debut album amidst the lockdowns of the COVID pandemic and it was largely informed by the sudden death of Matt’s father. I have yet to listen to 2022’s “Souvenirs” but I have every intention of rectifying this in the very near future.

“This house” followed that debut by one day short of a year. This album is considered by the group to be the debut’s older and wiser sibling, not just because it benefited from the band’s ability to perform live and hone their craft and that it was recorded with the band together, rather than locked down in separate places. The sophomore record was finished in the shade of another parental death, this time after Matt’s mother had endured a long terminal illness. This was a sustained mourning rather than a bolt of lightning, but this mourning was extended to the ending of many things. The house on the cover, as an example, was the house that frontman Matt grew up in, where both of the band’s first records were recorded, and that needed to be sold, inciting the band’s relocation to another city.

Reading this, one might think that the music would be dour and melancholic, but this is not the case at all. The music is a blend of the various band members’ favourite music and so dream pop, jazz, electropop, and disco all bring an upbeat and hopeful feel to such difficult subject matter. It is 44 minutes of transporting music, songs that stick to your bones and seep into your skin, and make you want to live in the music and let it delay what comes next just a little while longer.

There isn’t one out of the eleven that I dislike but these three picks for you are ones pulled from those near the top of the heap.

“Takes me over“: “Surrounds me, like a living dream.” The first single released off the album nearly closes the album at track 10 of 11, practically the climax before the climax. It begins with a driving bass line that might be pulled from Peter Hook’s playbook and then the drums take over and we’re really off to the races. This frenetic track deals with release and how music can get you there. As Matt Board says, it’s about “embracing, processing and letting go through music making and any artistic or creative process”.

“Spaces”: Jangling guitars and shimmering synths and punishing rhythms, oh my. Matt Board’s vocals are there, right on top, urging us all on. “Forget about life. Forget about what was, it’s always changing. Let go, let go, let go. You’re already gone. These feelings, they’re temporary.” It’s another track that’ll leave you breathless by the end of its three minute duration. Pale Blue Eyes want you to accept change and get on with it and have a great time in so doing.

“Simmering”: This last one here is pure joy, the height of the evening, a night out with friends and forgetting all that ails you. It’s banding together for support and appreciating all the little things that add up to greatness. It is a driving guitar that doesn’t know where the brakes are. It is rapid fire drumming and a piece of 80s synths that teases and flirts. It’s Matt board asking “In the morning it’s over, where is my mind? Is this a party inside?” This is a song that would have had me on the dance floor in seconds back when I was young enough not to know my limits and didn’t care. And I still think it would get my butt out there. It’s so beautiful.

We’ll be back in a handful of days with album #4. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Bodywash “I held the shape while I could”
9. Boygenius “The record”
8. Depeche Mode “Memento mori”
7. The Clientele “I am not there anymore”
6. Eyelids “A colossal waste of light”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.