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Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend Review

“Emotionally evocative, gorgeously put-together, and unquestionably fun, Wolf Alice are back to show that they’ve still got it.”

Wolf Alice deserve to catch your attention with Blue Weekend. A heartfelt and energetic return from the London four-piece, this album provides for those of us who can’t currently manage a festival right now by curating a supremely fun and vibrant atmosphere across its short, sweet, and to the point ten-track listing. At no point does the album overstay its welcome and, while it certainly plays it safe in some ways, the production and instrumentation are so satisfyingly fine-tuned that you can’t much begrudge the band for the efforts.

Spoken for by the seamlessness of transitions on this album, it’ll take even a casual first listen through only a few tracks to realise the excellent pacing and sublime transitions across the record. When these transitions aren’t seamless, they’re naturalistic and snappy, perfectly filling a niche in tone and energy with each new track to grace your ears. Each addition to the listing flows freely into the next, whether through a purposeful crossfade or the abrasive jump into action of tracks like ‘Play The Greatest Hits’ which catapults you into the fray to fend for yourself as the music ramps up all around you. 

By no means to discredit its forerunners, the first moment of the album to shine with a seriously compelling level of craftsmanship and attention to detail comes three tracks deep with what feels intended as a classically summery pop-rock banger. ‘Lipstick On The Glass’ grips you with Roswell’s vocals and the rising intensity of the instrumentation around her, owing to some really cohesive synergy between the band and a density in the production that rewards repeat listens. It acts as the mission statement around which this album centres, with its maximal presentation and heartfelt lyricism. It makes you wonder how fun it would be to hear this live in a festival setting; we certainly can’t wait. The synergy of vocals and instrumental are almost therapeutic, reaching some ethereal heights in its final minute before we’re offered a brief respite in anticipation of that climactic moment. Early on, this track would be at home on a Clairo project; by the end, Roswell’s voice elevates it to the hallowed halls of “hey, this reminds me of Stevie Nicks”. This all goes without mentioning the more emotional core of the track, which manages to sustain the thematic line of the album. Just as this track brings vital new energy to the listing, its successor keeps the attitude going with a crunchy instrumental that winds you up in advance of Roswell’s near-hypnotic vocals. It’s a great one-two punch going from ‘Lipstick’ straight to ‘Smile’, happily satisfying the banger quota before the halfway mark, leaving plenty of room for Wolf Alice’s more experimental ventures.

The easygoing ‘Safe From Heartbreak (if you never fall in love)’ sees the band deploy some of their folkier roots in one of the mellower tracks. Its lyrical content is perhaps defeatist but the whole song plays as though it were someone’s process of coming to terms with their newfound emotional circumstances. We hear a willingness to move on and live with oneself, a vehement rejection of the person who wronged the narrator, and a resolute commitment to oneself over the expectations of one’s romantic attachments. It’s sad, closed-off even, but intimate in an insightfully useful way, further elucidating the strong thematic core of Blue Weekend at large. Only a short breath between tracks leads us to ‘How Can I Make It OK?’, almost the polar opposite of the previous track in terms of narratorial attitude, bouncing around different stages of grief. Here we are, now, bargaining along with Roswell and the band for the integrity of this relationship in the aftermath of its breakup. Unlike the last track, which played itself mostly straight from the initial hook onwards, this one progressively cranks things up as it develops, leading to an increasingly captivating groove that, coupled with those core titular lyrics, have a surprisingly danceable quality to them. 

One’s appreciation for the vocal work, not to mention its perfect counterparts in the instrumentation and the spacious but rich production, is likely to really kick into gear at this stage, especially when we spring through two tracks back-to-back that indicate just how diverse Wolf Alice’s range can be on this album. ‘Play The Greatest Hits’ is rowdy, in your face, and frantically angsty. It’s great and harkens back to some outings from Dream Wife or Kero Kero Bonito in its presentation and pokes some excellent fun at that kind of reductive party-going engagement with musicians. ‘Feeling Myself’, at least in part, has an appeal akin to that of Tennis or St. Vincent. However, the track is entirely Wolf Alice’s own, proven by the peaks and valleys of musical intensity on display. 

The whole album seems to build and build, rising and falling between the ‘Smile’ types and the ‘No Hard Feelings’ types until finally we reach the emotional climax of the album. Ninth in the list, followed only by the penultimate track (itself seemingly dedicated to resolving the untied threads of the ninth) and the closer, comes ‘The Last Man on Earth’. Piano sees us in, laying a veneer of gravitas over what’s to come. Roswell’s vocals feel intimate and close, rising and falling to a hush before inviting the musical explosion that we saw this album first building to back on ‘Lipstick’. The moment comes, sweeps you off your feet, and provokes genuine introspection. There are hints of Pink Floyd or even The Beatles in its grandiosity. It’s an even more emotional turn for the album than you’d expect but as the centrepiece of the thematic and narrative elements that run throughout, it couldn’t be more perfect.

The opener and closer, ‘The Beach’ and ‘The Beach II’ act as bookends to the emotional journey on which we’ve embarked. Both are stylish, mostly simple, and conclusive. They perfectly encapsulate the experience of not only listening to the album but also that of associating somewhere significant with the person whom you love and then later coming to terms with the fact that things have changed; this place isn’t what it used to be, and neither are you, and that’s okay. 

Other tracks occupy the record as well which, while they’re skillfully crafted and each brings a similarly eclectic take on a specific musical idea, feel more pedestrian due to their placement in the album’s pacing. It’s no real issue, rendering the album a more finely tuned end product at the expense of some individual tracks. Ultimately, that’s what’s important here: this is an album you can listen to in two ways. If you listen to individual tracks, you’ll pick your favourites for repeat listens of the catchiest higher-energy numbers. If you listen to it as an album, you’ll probably start crying when ‘The Last Man on Earth’ breaks down. Emotionally evocative, gorgeously put-together, and unquestionably fun, Wolf Alice are back to show that they’ve still got it.