REVIEW: The Pale White - The Big Sad

Closing in on a decade as a band, The Pale White are returning with their hotly anticipated second album, The Big Sad. The Geordie trio, made up of brothers Adam and Jack, and third member Tom, are slamming back onto the alt-rock scene with their scorching new album full of heavy riffs and labyrinthine baselines and vocals. This rhythmic triumph of a “self-produced and self-confident” album will help cement The Pale White as firm favourites in the alt-rock scene of 2025. 

Kicking the album off, ‘Lost In The Moment’, starts with a nostalgic sounding beat accompanied with building, almost ethereal vocals bursting into a solid drum beat as the song springs into life. Introducing who The Pale White are, ‘Lost In The Moment’ feels very reminiscent of early 2000s indie rock, and with that brings around feelings of summers spent growing up and finding yourself, then losing yourself and it is a belter of an opening track. Some of the vocals do tend to get lost in the power of the instrumental, and with vocals from frontman Adam Hope, that is not something you want to happen. 

Sticking with the stripped back, easy listening feel, ‘Lost In The Moment’ fades really nicely into the next track, ‘Final Exit’. Once more exhibiting Hope’s vocals in a way that feels significantly different from their 2021 album, Infinite Pleasure. His vocals feel more realised, like they fit with the music being made. The twinkly yet heavy, almost Bowie-esque feel of their sound, truly compliments Hope's vocals. The lyrics focusing heavily on personal change and how that can get lost in the repetition of everyday relationships, hit home for listeners on an album Hope described as “an album of honesty and purity.” This is particularly evident on ‘Final Exit’, that fades into an outro you can’t help but rewind to hear again and again.

Fueling a genre shift, part way through the album listeners are greeted with ‘There’s An Echo’. Immediately springing into action, the song begins with an eerie beat going straight into a dirty bass groove that you can’t help but move your head along to. Moving into the chorus, the mood lifts slightly with the addition of a light guitar riff and a strong beat from the drum skills of Jack Hope, which all add to the complexity The Pale White were hoping to add to this album. As one of the longer songs on the album, ‘There’s An Echo’ allows the listener insight into where the band were when they formed this album, you can hear all the musical textures they purposefully added and you can feel the passion behind the music. 

Experimentation can work wonders, especially on a second album, as a band will have already made who they are known. It can allow them to take slight risks. The 53 second track, ‘Interlude’, feels like The Pale White’s experiment that hasn’t truly landed. It feels too electronic, too produced against the dreamy, melodramatic nostalgia the rest of the album evokes. The addition of the conversations in the studio are great, they allow an insight into the band as people and it brings the music to life, it just feels like it would be better added to one of the songs already on the album, rather than separating it out as a track.

The album comes to its natural conclusion with the title track, ‘The Big Sad’. Focusing heavily on the 60s inspired flourishes that weave their way throughout this album, ‘The Big Sad’ flirts once again with the idea of the mundane and this idea of being down but not choosing to focus on it, all encapsulated with whimsical feeling synth notes. As a closing for an album, ‘The Big Sad’ leaves you wanting that little bit more. It doesn’t feel like the album ends where it should, and leaves you wanting more but not having that sense of satisfaction that it’s finished. 

With The Big Sad, The Pale White have set out to accomplish something ambitious, and while some tracks can feel slightly misplaced at times, we feel that they have achieved something that is musically invigorating. Capturing an essence of hometown music, with a feeling of big, loud alt-rock, The Pale White have created a sophomore album that lives up to the hype of their sound, and it is an album they should be boasting about. 

Score: 6/10 

The Big Sad will be released on April 18th 2025 via End of the Wall Recordings.

Words: Emily Bancroft

Photos: The Pale White