Following on the breakout success of debut album, My Love is Cool in 2015, Wolf Alice are back onto the scene and our speakers with new album Visions of a Life, but will it be something to howl about?
In their current form, the band has only existed since 2012, a meagre amount of time in band lifespans, but you’d never guess it. The North London group (we in Southgate are still waiting for a visit!) have enjoyed a whirlwind of success which shows no sign of slowing. But how does the new album compare to past success?
“Heavenward” opens the album. A slow-burning fuse of a start, gently swelling into a fat guitar riff with soft vocals layered on the top. The verse and chorus ebb and flow into one another from calm verses with reverbed vocals to choruses that hum with overdriven guitars. This reviewer can’t think of a better song to wake up with (curiously this is written a 5AM as well, so it’s pairing well with the coffee!).
Already finding previous success with the excellent track “You’re a Germ” featured on My Love Is Cool, “Yuk Foo” on the new album builds on this same punk-influenced vibe with raw, distorted vocals and guitars spiked with bright synth additions over a chaotic drum beat. It’s relentless for its short run time and leaves you wanting more.
However, if anything feels like it was either pulled from, or even missed off the track list for tour de force album My Love Is Cool, it’s “Formidable Cool”. The track drops any of the more recent synth and electronic or FX influence the band have picked up in favour of a track well suited to the group of garage rockers they are at heart, with what little FX they’ve used sounding like they’re straight off their amp, it’s worth jumping along to as if you’re there with them.
Close to the halfway point of the album, we’re left with a relatively calming, almost dreamy song in embodied by “Planet Hunter”. The song lilts through on the back of an acoustic guitar and minimalist drums before a final solo reaches through the amp static to lead us out of the track. Chasing through the same rumble and fuzz of amp static and re-entering the atmosphere is “Sky Musings”.
The new track trades the acoustic guitar and reverb for clearer, more defined drums and adds darker, whispered and wailed vocals with an echoing synth. Although not quite a gapless lead in, it’s almost as though the songs could have been recorded as one epic length song, they certainly complement each other when listened in order and both compete for best song of the album.
In less the sense of new lyrical material, but keen to experiment in many senses, is “Sadboy”. Whilst the song doesn’t hit every note cleanly and stumbles in terms of structure, it sounds like the band is keen to test the waters and not be constrained to any one form. Whilst not fantastic in its own right, what it might signify is definitely something that piques interest.
Sadly, the album does struggle to retain the same quality for the entire 12 song track list. “Space and Time” is, thankfully a shorter song and only around two and a half minutes, but doesn’t feel wholly necessary and seems like it could have been left on the recording desk, it breaks no new ground and lacks depth.
As the album begins to enter its final throes, we’re led to two gentler songs, packed with depth; enter “St. Purple and Green” and “After the Zero Hour”. Both of the pieces break into the outer reaches of the band’s repertoire, with the main anchoring point remaining as Rowsell’s haunting vocals. It’s easy to see with a female vocalist of this power, and a young band of this calibre how they’ve ended up vying for the UK top album (at the time of writing) with the legendary Shania Twain, there’s little to slow this four-piece set down.
As the grand finale to the album is “Visions of a Life”, a dark and brooding ballad of nearly 8 minutes with rare vocal accompaniment from Joff Oddie (Guitar, Vocals) and Joel Amey (Drums, Vocals). Where the song starts as a rumble of thunder, it begins to build into a galloping pace to reach the storm that is the midpoint of the song. From a relatively new band, having only been conceived in 2010 with two members, the results are staggering. The song gradually tapers off to a relatively calm end, and with it, ends the album.
The album is a masterclass in effort and exploration from a young, and frankly staggering band. If you hadn’t already heard of them, get yourself out and buy this album; then bring it straight to your local Richer Sounds demo room to get it on the speakers!
Author: Steve, Southgate store
