Swedish band Pale Honey release their new single ‘Set me Free’, the first new music from the band since 2017 album ‘Devotion’. The single is accompanied with news of their third album, to be released in February 2020 on Bolero Recordings.

Set Me Free’ started as a mere sketch in the dawning age of Pale Honey but has since been transformed into “a lead track about freeing yourself from others’ comments and opinions”, says Pale Honey drummer, Nelly Daltrey. Musically somewhere in-between light 80’s disco and sad 90’s indie, it balances on a knife-edge, perfectly.

A melancholic yet groove-laden track, it can be treated as a liberating experience in itself, songwriter and guitarist Tuva Lodmark explains: “To me, the song symbolizes the emotions following a recent break-up. I was pissed and bitter, and at the same time regretful and sad. There was also an energy in me that was about to explode. I couldn’t be still, couldn’t sit at home, I had to go out and constantly meet new people. Everything had to happen, and it needed to happen all at once. The danceable element of the song represents the stage in a separation where you’re rediscovering yourself. Or simply going out into the night and not getting home until dawn.”

Pale Honey’s third album is, as well as their earlier work, produced by Anders Lagerfors. The journey to release has not been plane sailing, Daltrey reveals, “it’s been tough as hell getting there, to be honest, but no matter what the road has been like, we have to bring it out into the light. We need to be able to write and play while having those doubts and horrible moments.”

The artwork for the new singles features illustration by Daltrey and looks to “portray different forms of what Pale Honey is. At the time, I actually just wanted to sit by myself and create something without showing it to anyone. But I feel like the illustrations found their way into the music. They are a tribute to everyone I look up to.”

Is ‘Set me Free’ based on their own experiences? You bet. Did they know from the start this was how raw it would turn out? Hell no. But there is something very special about staring at yourself in the mirror and confronting your face fully swollen from all the ugly crying. Because you know, through some deep resilience, that you’re gonna be alright in the end, and that in the meantime you can find comfort in dancing yourself free from the pain you’ve been through. Daltrey says it best: “Sometimes you just need to dance ugly and be held, without having to ’perform’ to be rewarded with love.”