PARIS PALOMA
Cacophony (Nettwerk)
The summer of 2024 truly belonged to the pop purists – namely, the sugary, uptempo highs injected into the charts by Charli XCX, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, to say nothing of the Taylor Swift machine churning its way through Europe. But between the viral Apple and H-O-T-T-O-G-O dances and the march of the Swifties, singer-songwriter Paris Paloma’s single Labour, from debut album Cacophony, has been rumbling beneath the surface like a slow-building storm.
The folky pop song isn’t the addictive shot to the system of say, Song Of The Summer contender Espresso; rather, its vivid storytelling and hymnic chorus are wholegrain nourishment burrowing bone-deep, sustaining a growing fanbase to Cacophony’s release – timed perfectly for the seasonal transition. As trite as it is to use the ‘relatable’ label for Paloma’s songwriting, Labour, especially, succeeds because it makes no secret of its feminist aims yet remains multilayered in its presentation, rewarding the earworm nature of repeated plays.
Ploughing into the well-worked ground of women’s exhaustion at fulfilling contradicting roles for men (“Therapist, mother, maid / Nymph then a virgin, nurse then a servant”), Paloma deftly mixes historical references. One stanza asks: “Who fetches the water from the rocky mountain spring?”while another sings of picket fence dreams, emphasising this frustrated weariness with a subtler nod to how long the problem has persisted.
The rest of the album is equally rich, with Boys, Bugs And Men speaking to power, pain and pleasure, and Drywall of escaping a toxic relationship. There are shades of Taylor Swift in these cleverly visual lyrics, Florence Welch in the piercing vocal range and atmospheric melodrama of the accompanying folk-rock, and maybe a little of Fiona Apple’s sensitivity in the stipped-back ballads. After an OTT summer of pop polish, Paris Paloma has crafted the perfect comedown to curl up with on colder, autumn days.
words HANNAH COLLINS
