Wolf Alice - My Love Is Cool

Around two years ago Wolf Alice played at the Cavern, at a night ran by the now defunct ‘Kink.’ Since then, I’d seen them all over, in random copies of NME I’d picked up for long train journeys, on the line-ups of Festivals and suchlike. All this gave me the impression they were far more established then they perhaps are in reality. When I came to My Love Is Cool, I thought it was their second or third album, in lieu of it being a debut.

What we have then here, is in fact, an act that has been hyped for an extremely longtime, and in this regard it is difficult to go into My Love Is Cool with anything but high expectations. Yet, regardless of how high you set the bar, this debut is impressive, full of vibrant, interesting tracks that are extremely fluid between the sub-genres of the umbrella paradigms of Indie and Alt-Rock. Whilst this means the sound is emphatically experimental and multivocal instead of being sonically coherent, this is an exciting effort that I for one have listened to repeatedly since its release.

It is indicative of these energetic shifts that the two best songs on the album are so different. Your Loves Whore, which I’d tip as the band’s next single is a melodic piece of post-Grunge, restrains itself impeccably from slipping into thrashing monotony; the distorted riffs are deployed succinctly and effectively. Meanwhile Silk sees the band lean far more into territory reminiscent of The Horrors at the opening, before focusing into a atmospheric chorus that reminds me of a London Grammar interpretation of Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

What impresses me about My Love Is Cool is almost continuous innovation and crossover that at no point slips into something disparate or discordant. Whilst on first listen one is seriously drawn in by the varied and effective adaptations of a multiplicity of influences into a series of individual tracks, on later listens it becomes apparent just how well-executed this movement has been. Many other albums that incorporate such generic breadth and scope come out as a bit of a mess, but here Wolf Alice have created a dynamic series of tracks, the most of which are excellent in their own right. Whether they choose to concentrate on one particular timbre or continue with such hybrid work in the future, I recommend keeping an eye on them as they develop.