The Eighties may rule modern rock radio in 2015, but the Nineties are fast approaching. Or so it seems from London foursome Wolf Alice’s mid-afternoon Austin Ventures set on Friday.
Certainly the visual makeup varied. Welcome the glam punk, the flash metal refugee, the working-class kid, and the waif. Yet the band’s vision was pure 1992, a crushed-leather blend of distorted guitar, romantic angst, and pop tunefulness pitched somewhere between Lush and the Pixies.
Opener “Your Love’s Whore,” from the group’s June debut My Love Is Cool, drew the map: loud/soft dynamics and a guitar sheen underpinning singer Ellie Rowsell’s ethereal coo. She wielded more full-throated vocals for the similar “Bros,” much tougher than its LP counterpart. The energy multiplied noticeably for the squalling “You’re a Germ,” holding on to melody despite the litany of insults that make up the lyrics.
Wolf Alice kept firm grasp on its aesthetic from that point on thanks to the soft/savage shenanigans of “Blush” and “90 Mile Beach,” and the Swervedriver shoegaze of “Storms.” Sugary dissonance ruled “Fluffy” given Rowsell’s bratty exhortation “Sixteen! So sweet!” and a six-string slash, while the slyly inserted Eighties butt rock of “She” hinted at a wider palette. The hard-rocking boogie and doom breakdown of “Giant Peach” added unexpected color and made the orthodox Nineties alt-rock of “Moaning Lisa Smile” sound fresh instead of formulaic.
If the bad old days of the post-Nirvana years are making inroads back to the mainstream, they’re in good hands with Wolf Alice.
This article appears in October 9 • 2015.
