Vince Leigh’s Single Review: In Her Wake by Bayley Pearl
By Drummer Vince Leigh (Pseudo Echo, John Farnham, Tina Arena) from the Australian Radio Promotions
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The debut track for Queensland singer-songwriter Bayley Pearl will undoubtedly go a long way in helping the young artist achieve some of her career goals: ‘I want to continue to be creative in the industry, play full time and have people hear my music and what I have to say.’ And that said, it seems In Her Wake does aspire to say a few things. In fact, one of the lyric’s most endearing and immediate features is its adamantine stance, a list of metaphoric declarations that all eventually merge into one indisputable claim: ‘You can see her coming from a mile away / But you better take cover / Go find somewhere safe to stay / If you cross her, don’t you cross her / That will be your last mistake.’ And we know just what this is all referring to.
This sense of warning pulses through the track, with the supporting musical structures—the instrumentation, the production, the slow-boil groove—conspiring to help with this cautioning. But perhaps most coercive of all these combined elements is Bayley’s vocal, rich with intention and entirely up to the task. Using a low register during the verses with a few more elevated ones in the chorus, Bayley establishes not only an unforgiving and not-so-underlying attitude but a noteworthy skillset. Alongside the lyric’s charm are the equally effective melodic lines, contrived to fit into the rhythm’s push and sway with ease, rendering them as memorable as they are natural sounding. Co-written by Bayley and Danielle Lo Passo, and Shawn Byrne at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN, In Her Wake’s mixed genre appeal covers a lot of bases. With a debut EP release forthcoming, a national tour featuring a performance at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January 2023, and a US visit in March of the same year, Bayley looks set for a busy 2023.
