More about: Babeheaven

Babeheaven’s latest album sees the band leaning into a much more eclectic range of influences and sounds, melding elements of R'n'B and electro-pop into their dreamy indie sound. Atmospheric and ethereal, Sink Into Me is a melodic delve into disillusionment, loss and yearning for human connection. 

Babeheaven enter Sink Into Me with ‘Heartbeat’ displaying the synths you might expect of their bedroom-pop back catalogue, and then they lift them into a rooting of jazz and R'n'B-inspired drums and melodies. Nancy Andersen’s breathy and echoing vocals elevate the song into a dreamy realm alongside the slick guitar slides. ‘Heartbeat’ promises Sink Into Me to display a richer musical tapestry of atmospheric sound than we've heard from Babeheaven so far.

Collaborating with Navy Blue on the single ‘Make Me Wanna,’ Babeheaven delve into these musical elevations. Synths turn into moments of psychedelia, and Navy Blue’s verse is a smooth and fluid assertion of hip-hop flow. These moments elevate the album out of what can, at times, become quite a familiar sound. The dream-like atmosphere that Babeheaven create spans across the entirety of Sink Into Me, but only reaches interesting heights when they play with what we can expect from it. 

Stepping away from bedroom-pop, the presence of gritty and grooving basslines and guitar melodies across songs like ‘The Hours’ and ‘Erase’ pierce through and capture the hooks across the album. ‘The Hours’ is one of the catchiest moments of the album as the drums kick in and introduce a really fun and upbeat rhythm to carry the strikingly melancholic lyrics "oh god I’m back in this place again/Back where the hours bend".

This melancholia weaves its way through the album to become one of its main themes, offering comfort and warmth through its confrontation of this desire for contact. Moments such as ‘Holding On’ lift Nancy’s vocals into an ethereal place, capturing the yearning and heartache in lyrics such as "I’m a fool for losing you". Loneliness is confronted head on. 

The emotional exploration of Sink Into Me that Babeheaven are exploring all comes to a head in the title track. The invitation of "lean into me, I’ll take your weight" pulls you into a sense of warmth and comfort. A cleansing and warm balm for the emotional weight of the album, delicate guitars decorate this devoted statement. 

Sink Into Me closes in an almost triumphant and choral building of synths in ‘Open Your Eyes’. The melancholic battle with loneliness pervades once again through the lyrics of the song and eventually it fades out and disperses into silence. 

Sink Into Me offers a richer delve into Babeheaven’s sound, pulling out and playing with eclectic influences to offer an album full of smooth and atmospheric musings on loss, loneliness, and connection. Though at times somewhat repetitive, the album acts as a whole to signal a change in pace for Babeheaven and stands as a vulnerable and often melancholic approach to the desire for human connection—offering just that through its songs. 

Sink Into Me arrives 18 March via Believe. 

Issue Three of the Gigwise Print magazine is preselling now! Order here.

More about: Babeheaven