W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Waverly Place by Pale Lights (Jigsaw Records)

Pale Lights is/was the original creative outlet for New York City (by way of London) artist, Phil Sutton. Having released their debut effort, Before There Were Pictures back in 2014 to numerous accolades it took a full three years to get the follow up, The Stars Seemed Brighter in 2017. Subsequently, Sutton has been preoccupied with his latest band Love, Burns who released a stellar album in 2022 called It Should Have Been Tomorrow.

Pale Lights returns however, with this week’s release of Waverly Place on Jigsaw Records. Unfortunately there is a caveat. Waverly Place contains no new music from Pale Lights, as this is a collection of 7″ singles, B-sides, and Bandcamp only songs. That being said, don’t let that fool you into thinking this is merely a throw away compilation of material that fans already have in one form or another. Waverly Place never once feels like a comp at all. Actually, the sequencing and remastering of each of the songs for vinyl makes the album feel like a legitimate album (and nothing like a best of the rest comp.)

The album opens with “You and I”, a single which originally was a pandemic release that Pale Lights put out on Slumberland Records. With its bouncy jangly strumming, surf rock guitar riffs and wafting background vocals combined with a beautiful trumpet fill, “You and I” is one hell of an opener. 

Next up we get another power pop strummer called “Twisting The Knife” and so on and so on. The flow of WP from song to song leads the listener to get the feel of an album with a clear image, a clear intent to be more than a mixed bag of throw offs. Listening to Waverly from start to finish the listener can’t help but feel like they are listening to a cogent album with a distinct theme and compass. One can only hope that this is merely a placemark in the career of Pale Lights and not the sentence ending period, marking an end to this band. But either way, Waverly Place offers up what is a fantastic collection of jangle pop, an album that is fresh and uplifting, an album wich leads the charge for what I hope is a great 2024 for new music releases.