Wolf Alice’s steady development from folk leaning acoustic project to full blown indie rock powerhouse has reached critical mass with the release of the muscular and confrontational new single, “Smile,” and its fisheyed fever dream of a video conjured into existence by acclaimed filmmaker Jordan Hemingway. A band lauded for their elastic versatility and sporting the abundance of talent necessary to hopscotch across genre boundaries with remarkable ease, Wolf Alice continues to defy expectations by delivering a stadium-sized britpop anthem for the modern era.
In an alternate universe where only fully vaxxed boomers survived the COVID-pocalypse, Wolf Alice is the house band in a pub-life purgatory performing nightly to a rambunctious rabble of turnt-up oldsters hellbent for liquor and misbehaving like a gang of piss-drunk lads on holiday. Fed up with the clientele’s juvenile behavior, the overtaxed bartender boils over in the face of overwhelmingly incessant demands on her attention, acting out a wild fantasy of uncompromising self-expression. Hemingway’s unique visual alchemy bends light and color into a kaleidoscopic hurricane of frenzied action that twists reality with a Wonka-esque level of reckless abandon that spins and twirls with candy-coated unpredictability.
Massive guitar crunch recalls the band’s 2015 hit “Moaning Lisa Smile,” but cranked to 11 and jammed into a deep groove that swaggers across the low end, honey glazed with magnetic sexuality and fuzzed out confidence. Ellie Rowsell delivers her lines with machine-gun ferocity, a staccato blitzkrieg of feminine bravado that barely lets up before breaking into a brilliant dayglo chorus teleported straight from the 1990s. “Smile” is refreshing and referential, immediately engaging and sufficiently substantial in the way that will ensure it’s an inescapable summer staple this year and well beyond.
Wolf Alice will release their third album, Blue Weekend, on June 11. Follow the band on Instagram.
