Wolf Alice

Blue Weekend

DIRTY HIT Era-defining sounds from the London visionaries’ third album-of-the-year contender.

‘Great guitar hopes’ does a reductive disservice to the brilliance of Wolf Alice. They’ve bagged two No.2 albums and the 2018 Mercury Prize (for 2017’s

Visions Of A Life) by being the evolutionary leap into an era where alt.rock, psychedelia, dream pop, grunge, punk and intergalactic next-gen shoegaze intermingle on a binary-defying sonic spectrum.

Shedding the darker, sludgier side of Visions, their third and arguably finest album ventures further still, folding Kate Bush’s operatic mistiness, minimalist art-pop, gruesome go-go and the odd R&B intonation into an already flavoursome stew. Befitting an album about escapism (The Beach dreams wistfully of an exotic postlockdown bender; lustrous, Lana-like semi-rap Delicious Things is an ode to the Hollywood high life), defiant self-belief (‘I am what I am and I’m good at it,’ singer Ellie

Rowsell asserts on cosmic rave rocker Smile) and the turbulent tides of love, an oceanic crescendo is never far away. But its more vulnerable moments breathe, sometimes heavily: Feeling Myself lures shoegaze into the bedroom for an orgasmic tribute to self-love, while Safe From Heartbreak (If You Never Fall In Love) could be Stevie Nicks dishing out hardbitten romantic advice after a dozen regretful tequilas.

Not just euphoric but also important music, and another near-faultless Wolf Alice wonder. ■■■■■■■■■■