More of a declaration of love really

The following was written 19 July 2015. It started out as a review and quickly become a declaration of love for My Love is cool, the debut album from Wolf Alice. Over the years I moved on from a “declaration of love” and half joked that it was my attempt to “explain everything about life” in a product review. As it is, it bares repeating, so here it is again.

More of a declaration of love really:

This is the first time I've truly fallen in love with an album for many years. I've read a review or two where people have said that Wolf Alice takes them back to the 90s and a time where music meant something. I imagine them all to be like me, early 40s and in search of something that resonates and is new but somehow reminiscent of sounds from our past. And that is what all great art does. It's familiar but new. It is also varied. Too many bands have a distinct sound but never change it up and demonstrate that they have more than one string to their bow. I will name no names but in the case of some bands you can listen to a whole album and like it, but barely notice a distinct difference between where one track ends and another begins. I love every track on My Love is Cool. I can't remember saying that of any album in a long time, but I also love that there are so many things going on here. There are so many different sounds on one album, sometimes even within one song. I'm somewhat out of my depth here when it comes to music knowledge. I am not going to pick out each instrument on each track. Read an NME review for that sort of thing. What you get here is 12 tracks with absolutely no filler because each one seems unique and yet you would know it's a Wolf Alice song without a doubt, whether they play poppy or grungy.

It's also worth noting that when you have 12 tracks that you love there is a massive decline in skipping tracks and you find yourself listening from start to finish. It reminds me of how much I used to appreciate that someone took the time and effort to consider the track order. Ever left a concert thinking that the last song the band played was a great track to end the night on? Same thing with albums. When you get to the last track The Wonderwhy I feel that, like the album, they threw everything into that track.

I had begun to think that my inability to find an album I loved all the way through was due to modern tech making life too easy to skip to my favourite track. It turns out that if you have 12 great tracks all in the right order you forget where the skip button is.
Another reason why I also had the Nineties flashback is that lyrically I have to say that this is great for one strange reason. I should precis this by saying that I grew up listening to New Order as a teen and had no idea what they were singing about or what they were even singing until I got my hands on the lyrics to read. As a writer I find this hard to say, but in the case of music it is often the case that you like the way something sounds before you ever know what is being sung. Memories of parents complaining that they couldn't tell what those grunge artists were on about. Why couldn't Nirvana enunciate better? We didn't need to know exactly what was being said. We just knew that something smelt like teen spirit. Who cared? Well, maybe I secretly did, nosing through the lyrics in the CD cover.

I could rant and rave forever but ultimately I have to say that I actually didn't think I'd ever come across new music that I would feel this way about ever again. So, I should be excused my excitability here. I have had many a discussion about how music isn't written for me anymore. I am not the right demographic. Or so I'm told. Wolf Alice prove to me that good music has no demographic. So, it is possible to be twenty one or double that age and know that should anyone choose to lecture you telling you they've heard this all before that you can tell them that that's the beauty of it, to be familiar but new and unique. And I can only hope it grows from here.