Betty Clarke 

Wolf Alice review – restless spirits and disparate sounds

Wolf Alice’s success lies in uniting their multifarious styles with pop melodies and earworm choruses, writes Betty Clarke
  
  

Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice.
Bright future … Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice. Photograph: Maria Jefferis/Redferns via Getty Images Photograph: Maria Jefferis/Redferns via Getty Images

It’s a homecoming gig for indie buzzband Wolf Alice and emotions are running high. “We never thought we would play to this many people,” says bassist Theo Ellis to the rapturous crowd. “You’re going to make Ellie cry.”

Ellie Rowsell and lead guitarist Jeff Oddie met in 2010. An apprenticeship of open-mic nights, after-school clubs and apathetic audiences followed, during which Wolf Alice morphed from an acoustic duo to an electric four-piece whose delicate folk was given a grunge-pop makeover. Two feted EPs later, this is the band’s last show before they record their debut album.

On a darkened, dry-ice-drenched stage, the howling chords of Storms send Oddie and Ellis spinning around the stage, but all eyes are on Rowsell. Shimmering in a sparkly jade-green dress, her vocals are breathy, sweet and sassy, but when she spits out the words of She and shrieks through Leaving You, the 22-year-old makes a convincing riot grrrl, right down to her Doc Marten boots.

That Wolf Alice pride themselves on their restless spirit and disparate sound is apparent in three new songs. The gothic Turn to Dust sees Rowsell joined by her friend Abby for creepy, choral harmonies – though the echo effect created by a second microphone disappoints. Drummer Joel Amery takes over vocal duties and plays acoustic guitar on Swallowtail, which starts off as a woozy love lament before spiralling into thrashy rock. The mood lingers with the punky Lisbon, which could be a lost Dandy Warhols gem.

Wolf Alice’s success lies in uniting these multifarious styles with pop melodies and earworm choruses, but even Rowsell looks taken aback as Bros is roared back to her. Brandishing a can of beer, she giggles during a sublime encore of the very Sundaysesque Blush and stands atop the drum riser for second single Fluffy, her back to the crowd and a brilliant future ahead of her.

 

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