With their first album, they kickstarted a revolution. With their second, 'Visions of a Life', they're changing the game all over again.
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With their first album, they kickstarted a revolution. With their second, 'Visions of a Life', they're changing the game all over again.
Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Through the ever-growing excitement of debut album ‘My Love is Cool’, Wolf Alice got bigger and more potent. There were nominations, awards and loads of big numbers as the belief that they are A Very Important Band shifted from buzzy optimism to undeniable truth.
Expectations surpassed in every direction, new album ‘Visions of a Life’ takes all that magic and pushes it widescreen. Songs of friendship, fear, fantasy, fallout and love drip in an earthly reality, making sense of things that shouldn’t but never getting lost in the search for something pure or wasting time looking at their own relevance.
See, Wolf Alice make the sort of music that galvanises relationships, soundtracking nights that’ll last forever and offering a comforting escape when things you thought would, don’t. They’re very much in love with music and two albums in, they’ve become a band we can, and do, rely on.
Like Este, Danielle and Alana or Noel, Liam and, erm, those other guys - they’re the sort of band who you know on a first name basis. A group of friends done good, they still wrestle, will put their hands in pockets for money towards a bottle of milk and find the humour in any situation.
But the world has shifted around them. A lot has changed since the release of that debut. After the wide-eyed search of ‘My Love is Cool’, ‘Visions of a Life’ sees the band taking control, saying no and making a stand. It’s mature without being boring (Wolf Alice don’t do dull), and is serious but never self-important.
A lot of what makes this band connect comes easy - effortless companionship and a giddy, grinning excitement about everything they do - but this new album sees them dig down into difficult. Every decision takes what you think you know about their music, and warps it.
“We’re trying really hard,” starts Ellie Rowsell. “It’s not just mates making music. We are ambitious and hard working. We’re not just like, this is a laugh. There are a lot of sacrifices you have to make doing what we’re doing so if we’re making those sacrifices, we want to see something. I want to work hard, it’s fun that way. You don’t want it to flatline, and it’s not just jokes.”
“It’s not,” confirms Theo Ellis. “That’s been noticed this time around. We don’t feel like four goofy friends, even though we obviously are.”
Those sacrifices and struggles light fires across ‘Visions of a Life’. The difficult second album that never was, the band finished touring, went home and realised they already had a record sketched out. They set up camp in a practice space with twenty-four-hour access and began to explore.
“We were able to record and work stuff out, with plenty of space and no time restraints,” Theo explains. “We got into doing that and forgot about everything else.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row
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