Heaven Knows

There’s a whiff of wistful nostalgia in seeing PinkPantheress veer away from micropop, but artists need to evolve and she’s exploring rather than conforming. “Heaven Knows” is a big chapter in what is hopefully a long story.

A long time coming, ‘Heaven knows’ is a debut album that was well worth the wait from PinkPantheress, and a sign of a promising career from the singer.

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.

PinkPantheress’s pop gift is to make something airily attractive out of elements that could be brain melting, as if singing with the internal voice of a generation numbed by the everything goes-ness of the internet.

If PinkPantheress often seems adrift in apprehension and loneliness, she inhabits the LP’s different purgatorial states with the same confidence that made her early releases so appealing

With keen ears for melody, turbo-paced beats perspire, and episodic SFX rouses either pure revelry or contemplation. She’s on to a marvellous start.

Even as PinkPantheress explores her deepest, darkest emotions, her songs are vibrant, hook-filled, and wildly inventive, making Heaven Knows just as worthy of repeated listens as To Hell with It, and confirming her status as a pop visionary.

Ultimately, what makes ‘Heaven Knows’ such a compelling debut is its ability to create British wistfulness. The emotions and sounds are familiar enough to pull you in, and peculiar enough to make you stay.

Heaven knows has more intricate songwriting and a wider scope [than her 2021 mixtape to hell with it].

Heaven knows may not creatively propel PinkPantheress to new heights, but it’s a poetic and dramatic compilation of breakup songs that will leave a listener dancing around their living room while yearning for their toxic ex.

The album’s satisfying and detail-rich production choices, courtesy of co-producers like Greg Kurstin and Mura Masa, achieve a tonal cohesion throughout.

The Ice Spice collab "Boy's a liar Pt. 2" is perhaps inevitably tacked onto the end of Heaven knows. It's a bit of a self-own, as it easily outshines the rest of the album despite being far simpler in every way. PinkPantheress has become an expert pop craftswoman — but the stripped-down magic of "Boy's a liar Pt. 2" reminds listeners that incredible hooks outweigh intricate production every time.

Even as she extends herself as a songwriter, and as she grows more comfortable in the spotlight, she hasn’t found a way to build on the full extent of her mystique.