Hemmingway or some shit said you should write drunk and edit sober. That's not going to happen. I'm writing about a band I love and champion.
Wolf Alice are a bunch of kids my age from London. And they are not the saviours of the 90s guitar rock legacy as the hype machine have made them out to be. Look elsewhere. They're a different sort of animal. They want to go beyond just their heavy 90s this is what we grew up on stuff. They take it and run with it in different directions and progress as a band exploring their sound with every release.
I first discovered the band on a Sheffield podcast. Falling in love with the balls to the wall noise of Storms.
I can't help but write about them because every night I fall asleep thinking 'why haven't you written about them. You have to make your friends listen to them. You have to shout how much you love them from the rooftops.'
Someone once described PJ Harvey as having a feminine virility (or was it muscular femininity?) I think the same can be said for Ellie's voice. It can be girlish and nostalgic, a primal scream, an intimate whisper, a chanting monotone. (Best example is heavenly creatures on the creature songs ep)
When she does the fragile spiderweb voice on songs like Blush from the Blush EP the effect is devastating (she sings In happy now, but the 'are you happy now?' That comes right after gives it an entirely different spin). But for now, let's get to their debut album My love is cool.
Turn to dust - a wistful first track. The electric guitar is like Jackson Browne on These Days. A legacy of old British music but the electronics make it new. Handclaps - I'm sold. The slidey guitar, that constant hum of bass all adds to the dreamy feel of the song. Everything is held together by her delicate voice. You're swimming underwater and leaving it all behind. It sounds oldschool classical english. Folksy in a way. The voice is a siren call. Come underwater with me where everything is drowned in sound.
Bros - A different version from the previously released single on youtube. The voice is the same though. The previous version was pure - Twinkling guitars and driving drums with a sunny (British) summer feel to it. Gave you the warm fuzzies. I think I also feel differently towards it because that was one of the first things I heard from them, apart from Storms. I always picture them dancing like they did in the video, when I first fell in love with them. With Joff in a kilt (*be still my beating heart*)
This version is polished to become a summer anthem with an M83 glow around it. That one was just something you felt straight away. Joel and Ellie singing together. The drums drive you more. Bedroom secrets, gauzy curtains and running around in the English sun. Lyrics added to it in the verse. 'I can keep you safe, you'll keep me Strong' 'Remember when we cut our hair we both looked like boys but we didn't care, stick it out together like we always do.' This reminds me of my friend K and I in college swagging around college with our pixie cuts, people thought we were a couple. I wouldn't blame them. But the song as a whole reminds me of shivering in a tent with the one girl who gets me the closest. Pinnacle of girl friendships
'Are you wild like me raised by wolves and other beasts'. One of those awesome teenage songs.
Your Loves Whore - the drums in the opening already have me grooving. Staccato guitars come in then Theo's warm bass. I can imagine Ellie and Theo dancing girl group style in my head. They're building everything up and then there's a lift as it all comes together and Ellie's voice comes in somewhere in the layers of sound, like she's dancing in a cloud of smoke. It emerges up front. They can do clear and fuzzy at the same time. Race race race to that fuzz. The objective of this song is to go to that moment where you're spinning amidst the spiral of guitars.
Moaning Lisa Smile - Makes me want to fuck shit up. Always remember the video and imagine the boys in platform heels and sequined tops walking next to me as I stride along in the metro in the morning. I love it when they get heavy. The small town kid narrative. Waiting to get out. This existed to become a single. To kick the door down.
You're a Germ - Opens with Ellie Joel. 90s punk bass from Theo. We're going grrrl style. I can hear bits of Placebo's teenage angst phase in it. Ellie shouting reminds me of Corrin Tucker (Sleater Kinney) but with a rougher edge. Shout along chorus reminds me of The Breeders and Veruca Salt. Suddenly I start making connections because I'm thinking about this music. I'm thinking about the bands that me and this band have in common. I'm thinking of them again as people I know. Whenever I listen to their heavier songs I can imagine them playing in front of me. The song reminds me of things when I was younger and had my eyes wide eyes wild. Let's take that dodgy fucker to hell. Ellie's cackling shrieking growl at the end - its everything.
Lisbon - Again early 2000s indie pop. I love how she makes her voice soft like that and then lets out this yell. When everything crashes together and I can see all the sound swirling around me is when I love them the most. From the lyrics, this song is about Virgin Suicides (Lisbon is the last name of the sisters+stone cold fox. Second time after heavenly creatures that they've referenced one of my teenage pop culture phenoms). It's one of those films I've seen probably more than 20 times and read the book earlier this year. The song captures the peach pink gauzy feel of the girls' bedrooms but with manic giddy kinda dark end to the song as it reaches a head and fades into low rumbles of white noise. The buildup remind me of a Japandroids song, sweet noise. Remember the one time we smoked menthols. And the sound of adidas jackets rustling. I feel like a lot of this album is for 20 somethings that don't feel like fully formed adults and long for the excitement and all engulfing importance of teenage life. Even mundane moments hard that impatience
Silk - For all the descriptions of these guys as the 'second coming of Grunge' as other lazy cliches, their sound as often displays an early 2000s British indie sound. On first listen I didn't like this song. But the gotta stay cool you hot hot head hits close on most days. Best line 'whose fault is that if it wasn't mum and dad - well it must be yours/we'll have none of that'
When they go big they go for a big sound like Echo and the bunnymen did. Not similar sounding necessarily but in the same way.
Freazy is the quasi rap pop manifesto. Fuck da haterz, join our cool kid crew. They have you from the first moment. It's bright, it's reassuring. It makes you want to dance like Theo and Ellie. Joff included this song in their 3 songs that represent them best list. I really think it does because they don't make any bones about wanting different types of people to live their music. They're for the Glastonbury crowd and they will convert you even if you're just there and don't know who the fuck they are.
Giant peach is one of those moments I imagine them shredding live. The video shows them with an obnoxious manager, who tries to get them to strike the cliché rock n roll poses as they roll their eyes. They end up killing him. Ellie's in full control here. What though keeps me here? It's not the boy giving me funny feels. Our dark and pretty town. How long have I been tethered to the shitty town of Moning Lisa Smile and the darkly mysterious town this evokes. A touch of old school British 70s metal in this sometimes. Classic 90s saving Wolf Alice. Coppola worthy imagery. Break it down.
Swallowtail is Joel taking the mic. The song changes 3 times. Stay with it and follow the string of the electric. Joel's drums kick in and with it Joff's fuzz and building a shoegazey background. It all goes quiet as it surprises you running breakneck towards a breathless glowing ending.
Soapy water has that baggy beats we've heard in Beta Band and Beck songs.
Sorry I haven't done a good job on this despite loving you, Wolf Alice. But I am lazy and stupid.
But I started a new project, like today. It's kinda stupid and I'm trying to be tumblr.
Wolf Alice are a bunch of kids my age from London. And they are not the saviours of the 90s guitar rock legacy as the hype machine have made them out to be. Look elsewhere. They're a different sort of animal. They want to go beyond just their heavy 90s this is what we grew up on stuff. They take it and run with it in different directions and progress as a band exploring their sound with every release.
I first discovered the band on a Sheffield podcast. Falling in love with the balls to the wall noise of Storms.
I can't help but write about them because every night I fall asleep thinking 'why haven't you written about them. You have to make your friends listen to them. You have to shout how much you love them from the rooftops.'
Someone once described PJ Harvey as having a feminine virility (or was it muscular femininity?) I think the same can be said for Ellie's voice. It can be girlish and nostalgic, a primal scream, an intimate whisper, a chanting monotone. (Best example is heavenly creatures on the creature songs ep)
When she does the fragile spiderweb voice on songs like Blush from the Blush EP the effect is devastating (she sings In happy now, but the 'are you happy now?' That comes right after gives it an entirely different spin). But for now, let's get to their debut album My love is cool.
Turn to dust - a wistful first track. The electric guitar is like Jackson Browne on These Days. A legacy of old British music but the electronics make it new. Handclaps - I'm sold. The slidey guitar, that constant hum of bass all adds to the dreamy feel of the song. Everything is held together by her delicate voice. You're swimming underwater and leaving it all behind. It sounds oldschool classical english. Folksy in a way. The voice is a siren call. Come underwater with me where everything is drowned in sound.
Bros - A different version from the previously released single on youtube. The voice is the same though. The previous version was pure - Twinkling guitars and driving drums with a sunny (British) summer feel to it. Gave you the warm fuzzies. I think I also feel differently towards it because that was one of the first things I heard from them, apart from Storms. I always picture them dancing like they did in the video, when I first fell in love with them. With Joff in a kilt (*be still my beating heart*)
This version is polished to become a summer anthem with an M83 glow around it. That one was just something you felt straight away. Joel and Ellie singing together. The drums drive you more. Bedroom secrets, gauzy curtains and running around in the English sun. Lyrics added to it in the verse. 'I can keep you safe, you'll keep me Strong' 'Remember when we cut our hair we both looked like boys but we didn't care, stick it out together like we always do.' This reminds me of my friend K and I in college swagging around college with our pixie cuts, people thought we were a couple. I wouldn't blame them. But the song as a whole reminds me of shivering in a tent with the one girl who gets me the closest. Pinnacle of girl friendships
'Are you wild like me raised by wolves and other beasts'. One of those awesome teenage songs.
Your Loves Whore - the drums in the opening already have me grooving. Staccato guitars come in then Theo's warm bass. I can imagine Ellie and Theo dancing girl group style in my head. They're building everything up and then there's a lift as it all comes together and Ellie's voice comes in somewhere in the layers of sound, like she's dancing in a cloud of smoke. It emerges up front. They can do clear and fuzzy at the same time. Race race race to that fuzz. The objective of this song is to go to that moment where you're spinning amidst the spiral of guitars.
Moaning Lisa Smile - Makes me want to fuck shit up. Always remember the video and imagine the boys in platform heels and sequined tops walking next to me as I stride along in the metro in the morning. I love it when they get heavy. The small town kid narrative. Waiting to get out. This existed to become a single. To kick the door down.
You're a Germ - Opens with Ellie Joel. 90s punk bass from Theo. We're going grrrl style. I can hear bits of Placebo's teenage angst phase in it. Ellie shouting reminds me of Corrin Tucker (Sleater Kinney) but with a rougher edge. Shout along chorus reminds me of The Breeders and Veruca Salt. Suddenly I start making connections because I'm thinking about this music. I'm thinking about the bands that me and this band have in common. I'm thinking of them again as people I know. Whenever I listen to their heavier songs I can imagine them playing in front of me. The song reminds me of things when I was younger and had my eyes wide eyes wild. Let's take that dodgy fucker to hell. Ellie's cackling shrieking growl at the end - its everything.
Lisbon - Again early 2000s indie pop. I love how she makes her voice soft like that and then lets out this yell. When everything crashes together and I can see all the sound swirling around me is when I love them the most. From the lyrics, this song is about Virgin Suicides (Lisbon is the last name of the sisters+stone cold fox. Second time after heavenly creatures that they've referenced one of my teenage pop culture phenoms). It's one of those films I've seen probably more than 20 times and read the book earlier this year. The song captures the peach pink gauzy feel of the girls' bedrooms but with manic giddy kinda dark end to the song as it reaches a head and fades into low rumbles of white noise. The buildup remind me of a Japandroids song, sweet noise. Remember the one time we smoked menthols. And the sound of adidas jackets rustling. I feel like a lot of this album is for 20 somethings that don't feel like fully formed adults and long for the excitement and all engulfing importance of teenage life. Even mundane moments hard that impatience
Silk - For all the descriptions of these guys as the 'second coming of Grunge' as other lazy cliches, their sound as often displays an early 2000s British indie sound. On first listen I didn't like this song. But the gotta stay cool you hot hot head hits close on most days. Best line 'whose fault is that if it wasn't mum and dad - well it must be yours/we'll have none of that'
When they go big they go for a big sound like Echo and the bunnymen did. Not similar sounding necessarily but in the same way.
Freazy is the quasi rap pop manifesto. Fuck da haterz, join our cool kid crew. They have you from the first moment. It's bright, it's reassuring. It makes you want to dance like Theo and Ellie. Joff included this song in their 3 songs that represent them best list. I really think it does because they don't make any bones about wanting different types of people to live their music. They're for the Glastonbury crowd and they will convert you even if you're just there and don't know who the fuck they are.
Giant peach is one of those moments I imagine them shredding live. The video shows them with an obnoxious manager, who tries to get them to strike the cliché rock n roll poses as they roll their eyes. They end up killing him. Ellie's in full control here. What though keeps me here? It's not the boy giving me funny feels. Our dark and pretty town. How long have I been tethered to the shitty town of Moning Lisa Smile and the darkly mysterious town this evokes. A touch of old school British 70s metal in this sometimes. Classic 90s saving Wolf Alice. Coppola worthy imagery. Break it down.
Swallowtail is Joel taking the mic. The song changes 3 times. Stay with it and follow the string of the electric. Joel's drums kick in and with it Joff's fuzz and building a shoegazey background. It all goes quiet as it surprises you running breakneck towards a breathless glowing ending.
Soapy water has that baggy beats we've heard in Beta Band and Beck songs.
Sorry I haven't done a good job on this despite loving you, Wolf Alice. But I am lazy and stupid.
But I started a new project, like today. It's kinda stupid and I'm trying to be tumblr.
No comments:
Post a Comment