The Daily Spin, January 25
Wolf Alice | Blue Weekend
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here.
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Album: Blue Weekend (2021)
Artist: Wolf Alice
Link:
Wolf Alice has been receiving all the plaudits in the run up to this album - having been heralded quite a bit as one of the futures of festival rock, a star in the making six ways to Sunday - and Blue Weekend, in a sense, calls to that, with expansive riffs and gripping hooks that sail you from song to song along this crafted storyline, a new feature for the group.
Where Wolf Alice excels is these anthemic songs, light and airy with a side of shredded excellence, heavy but not overwhelmingly so. It’s classic indie rock, and it stands with the best of them throughout, at its absolute best when it’s Wolf Alice most authentically rather than Wolf Alice masking as some other act.
If I had one complaint regarding the album, that would be it. At times, it feels like Wolf Alice wants so badly to be something other than who they are that the group loses a sense of identity, left with whatever is in the shallows lingering behind.
Rating: 8.2/10
Best Tracks: Smile, No Hard Feelings
Worst Tracks: Play the Greatest Hits