If 2023 has been great to Charlotte Sands (and it has: winning the Heavy Music Award for Best Breakthrough Album, powering into arenas across the UK and Europe as special guest to 5 Seconds of Summer, and writing and recording her debut album), 2024 looks set to be bigger still. That eagerly anticipated album, can we start over?, will finally be unleashed on January 24th and the following months will see Sands taking those songs to the world at large, including her first set at the UK’s renowned Download Festival. In the meantime, this year brings one final highlight for the 27 year old as she shares the new single pity.
Charlotte Sands @ Hammersmith Apollo
The most vitriolic of her recent singles, pity plays out raw, punchy and direct – a barbed wire guitar riff snaking around her searing, full-throttle vocal attack as the track’s sonic dynamics leap from threatening verses to a visceral shout along hook. As with the best of Sands’ discography, pity channels vulnerable emotions into a blood-letting, cathartic release in a way that will connect with her ever-growing following.
Of the single Charlotte says: “pity’is a song about meeting ‘the perfect person’ and wishing you could be more like them. It’s about the feeling of jealousy and comparing yourself but also about the experience of being captivated by someone else’s existence. Making this song was such a fun experience, I wanted the production to feel like a high energy show opener while the melody stayed simple and repetitive so everyone could scream the words together when we finally get to perform it live.”
Check out the David O’Donohue-directed video for pity below:
pity joins use me and get over it in generating pre-release hype for the can we start over? album. Those three tracks sprawl across the sonic spectrum of the record’s varying moods, moving confidently from dark pop atmospherics to angsty, ‘90s-style alt-rock, and classic singer-songwriter vibes which reveal her deep-seated vulnerabilities. As an album which holds a mirror up to who Charlotte is right now, it feels right that it seemed to dictate its own direction. It took shape last May when Charlotte arrived in Los Angeles for what was intended to be a brief few sessions with Jutes, Alex Nice and Keith ‘Ten4’ Sorrells. But the songs took shape not only quickly but at a career-high standard with that team writing all three of the album’s singles so far, providing Charlotte with the platform to complete the biggest statement of her career to date.
Charlotte Sands @ Hammersmith Apollo
Sands has just announced details of her can we start over? world tour. It starts with over a month of shows across North America from early March before heading to Europe in late May and closing with a London show at The Garage on June 21st. Tickets for the shows are available here.
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