- Moving from the bedroom to a major label, PinkPantheress embellishes her drum & bass pop songs without losing the intimacy that made them so precious the first time around.
- "I wanted to make everyone feel a bit depleted and sad," PinkPantheress said in a recent interview with The Guardian. In the same interview, she calls her earliest songs—and "Boy's A Liar," her biggest hit—"crap." In another interview, she mentions wanting to get out of the trap of writing sad songs. All of this to say is that PinkPantheress is, in an overlooked way, extremely funny, and it's hard to tell when she's being serious and when she's joking. From her very first song, downcast lyrics over a buoyant Michael Jackson sample, her music has highlighted the melancholy of mundane love stories as well as made fun of them, dancing through the pain. That she pulled all this off alone in her bedroom with an ear for sampling and a zeitgeist-making taste for drum & bass and UK garage only made it all the more impressive.
"Another Life," the opening track of her debut album with a gliding guest verse from Nigerian star Rema, holds all this in careful balance. "I guess I'll see you in another life," she sings on the chorus, sounding like both a kiss-off and a hopeful thought. (The punchline? "Guess you died today," she says, when her lover won't wake up and answer her.) There's a clear difference between "Another Life" and past music. Instead of jungle breakbeats or 2-stepping drums, "Another Love" skates on a disco ice rink with slippery basslines and a depth of field missing from her past work. This comes courtesy of Mura Masa and Greg Kurstin, the latter a pop super-producer who has collaborated with PinkPantheress's hero Lily Allen. It's largely because of them, and a few other cooks in the kitchen, that Heaven Knows bursts off the page like a pop-up book compared to the first songs. PinkPantheress's small voice and micro song structures keep the record homespun and personal.
The album's glossiest cuts, like the fever dream of an "I-can-change him" anthem "The Aisle," or the music-box lullaby "Ophelia," lack the charm and cutthroat efficiency of to hell with it. The Central Cee collaboration "Nice To Meet You" feels like a missed opportunity. But for the most part, her signature bite is still intact. The highlight "Internet Baby (Interlude)," another song she has dismissed as "crap," is hilarious and self aware. "My SDs, USBs, you want all of those / And now you want to borrow my clothes," she sings over a roughshod beat that calls back to her self-produced material. It's a flashback to her humble origins in the middle of her debutante ball.
Just before "Internet Baby" comes one of the most mesmerizing tracks, "Bury Me," a Kelela collaboration with a bassline that floats through the stereo spectrum like curlicues of hookah smoke. It's understatedly sexy, especially when Kelela comes in. At a cruelly short two minutes and five seconds, "Bury Me" disappears just when you get a hold of it. It's a pleasant daydream before PinkPantheress starts taunting you about internet fame.
Those looking for the drum & bass cuts will find plenty to love here: the exhilarating "True Romance" can barely keep up with itself, and its combo of acoustic guitar strumming and rigid drums feels like a PinkPantheress trademark already. Early single "Mosquito" offers a more liquid style of drum & bass, made for cocktail lounges with its electric piano and "la-la-la" passages. Closer "Capable Of Love" sounds like DJ Hype on downers. Its cutesy, elongated vocal hook obscures the devastating observation within: "I'm obsessed with the idea that one day it breaks up / 'Cause after that, I know I'll never be as capable of love."
"Boys A Liar, Pt. 2," her mega-smash with fellow viral star Ice Spice, is tacked onto the end of the LP, almost like a reminder of the glimmers of world-dominating stardom that have surrounded PinkPantheress since the beginning. But as fun as that song is, it's a trifle compared to the clever turns of phrase and lush production of Heaven Knows. To her credit, there's only a few moments where her original DIY spark is snuffed out by overproduction. As a debut album from an artist who was extremely hyped since the earliest stages of her career, Heaven Knows is a relief: it keeps intact what makes her one of the most exciting UK pop acts of the 2020s, gesturing towards the mainstream while still keeping one foot in her musical hometown. It's the kind of record a promising artist puts out before they release something truly next-level.
Tracklist01. Another Life feat. Rema
02. True Romance
03. Mosquito
04. The Aisle
05. Nice To Meet You feat. Central Cee
06. Bury Me feat. Kelela
07. Internet Baby (interlude)
08. Ophelia
09. Feel Complete
10. Blue
11. Feelings
12. Capable Of Love
13. Boys A Liar, Pt. 2 feat Ice Spice