Wolf Alice release shimmeringly poetic ‘Visions Of A Life’

Rhythmic vocals from frontwoman Ellie Rowsell, complete with thundering guitar riffs and iconic bass lines, are back and braver than ever. With similar sounds to Wolf Alice’s previous stellar debut, My Love Is Cool (2015), their new record Visions Of A Life shows a mature progression from their first album and is ready to take over your party-hard playlist.

The four-piece London-based band have produced 12 tracks of pure alternative madness, which make you want to rebel against routine. Queue the need for a raucous mid-week sesh and a Hippodrome induced hangover.

The tracks are as playful as they are reflective and Wolf Alice have worked hard to create a lyrically twisted LP, rich in vulnerability. Yuk Foo was the first flavour offered to fans after they announced their comeback in June 2017. The albums unsurprising success stems from its girls gone wild anthems.

Rowsell contrasts screeching and screaming with sadistic whispers. Each song experiments with vocal amplification and synth reverberation, demanding that Rowsell’s words are listened to.

Beautifully Unconventional and Formidable Cool both work with guitarist Joff Oddie’s sleazy vibrato and stand out as sexier tracks from the album.

Don’t Delete The Kisses is a nostalgic ode to the awkward teenager, fumbling through their first encounter with love. The hypnotic repetition of the lyric, ‘What if it’s not meant for me? Love’ reflects the blindness you experience when you are besotted.

This track plays on the melodramatic notion that life ends when your first love or ‘crush’ rejects you. It is one to jam out to when you feel like relishing in self-pity. The belief that the kisses must be deleted in order to play it cool, so you ‘never let it show’, just reiterate the confusion of a modern relationship plagued by technology and social media.

Sky Musings stands out for being a more poetic track, which starts down-tempo and builds up to incorporate raspy spoken rhyming couplets. This is contrasted by the celestial harmonisations and bird call which is comparable to sounds from Lana Del Rey and Hurts.

The album concludes with its eponymous track, Visions Of A Life, and works the record into a natural crescendo. It cleverly weaves both past and present together, to create another flawless set of songs acting as a stepping-stone to the band’s ever-growing success.