Album Review – The Ninth Wave – Breaking Glass Magazine

The Ninth Wave – Heavy Like a Headache

As The Ninth Wave announce a hiatus to pursue other projects, they leave us with second album Heavy Like a Headache. Mixed emotions for fans as the anticipation of new music is coupled with the knowledge that those intense, intimate performances that the band have been bringing over the last few years are no longer on the cards. Nonetheless, the album still has stories to tell.

Vocal heavy Maybe You Didn’t Know holds elements of traditional Scottish songs of the past, segueing into more familiar ground on the 80s’ fashioned electro-pop of Heron on the Water. There are many dilemmas posed throughout. Recent single Hard Not to Hold You questions, ‘Should I change myself enough so you stop wanting to know me?‘ while closing track Song for Leaving ponders what might happen ‘if we break apart’.

As a whole piece of work, the album is impassioned and heartfelt, befitting of the circumstance in which it arrives. If this is to be their swansong, then at least we have a soaring momento of everything that’s gone before. Heavy Like a Headache, released tomorrow via Distiller Records, is an accomplished reminder of why The Ninth Wave will be very much missed.

Watch the video for What Makes You a Man below.