Live Review: Wolf Alice, WAAX

A mixture of black band shirts, groups of barely 18-year-old superfans, and a sprinkling of #fitspo Instagram models steadily fill the Eatons Hill Hotel for the eagerly anticipated return of British rockers Wolf Alice. A late-notice date and venue change for the Brisbane show means there’s a little too much room to move, but it did allow the band to accept the 2018 Mercury Prize a few days prior in the UK for their amazing second album Visions Of A Life - during which in their acceptance speech they recounted they were initially rejected by a record label because of their image, “But here we are, so fuck you!”

Local punks on the rise WAAX try their best to get the mosh moving before the Londoners take to the stage, but their enjoyably distorted and chaotic set - outside of their closing anthem Labrador - falls on somewhat uninterested ears. It seems most save their voices and applause for when Wolf Alice finally take to the stage instead.

The quartet waste no time on pleasantries, bursting into Your Loves Whore and throwing the Brisbane audience into a sea of guitarist Joff Oddie’s delay-driven refrains and frontwoman Ellie Rowsell’s swirling vocals.

Led by Roswell’s vicious delivery, a one-two-sucker-punch of Yuk Foo and You’re A Germ feels like a targeted audio attack on each member of the now heaving mosh, as bassist Theo Ellis taunts those on the mezzanine closest to him to join the fun down on the floor.

The delicate intro of Don’t Delete The Kisses seemingly comes out of nowhere and Eatons Hill is instantly consumed by Roswell’s dreamy vocals, unslinging her guitar to serenade the hundreds of fans with outstretched hands and swaying bodies.

Formidable Cool swiftly wrestles the mood back from airy pop to blistering rock, Roswell equal parts seductive and terrifying atop the song’s brooding arrangement. By the time the track reaches its climatic bridge, the petite Roswell sounds ten-foot tall as she shrieks, “That’s all he fucking did, when he fucked you on the floor!”

For Lisbon, both Roswell and Oddie strum and smack every inch of wood on their guitars and drummer Joel Amey is finally given permission to punish his skins to create the song’s saccharine wall of sound. The ensuring rapturous applause, however, is cut short by the haunting soundscape of Silk. Used powerfully in the recent sequel of Trainspotting, the song evokes a passionate singalong, and those who don’t know the words sway along in silence, engrossed.

Now sporting a rare smile, Roswell leads the band through their feel-good thumper Space & Time. It’s a frenzied tune thanks to Oddie’s imaginative techniques to create tasteful amounts of feedback, and the band make sure to pause before the final chorus to acknowledge the rowdy crowd, “We really mean this, you’re the best audience in Australia!”

Sounding more like a live collaboration between Tame Impala and Black Sabbath, the title track from Visions Of A Life is both a dreamy yet heavy-hitting rollercoaster of explosive riffs and a myriad of vocal textures and layering.

The set continues with deep cuts from their two studio albums before the inevitable Moaning Lisa Smile, but Oddie’s guitar chooses the worst moment to be plagued by technical issues. A powerhouse vocal performance from Roswell manages to save the song, but one of Wolf Alice’s most memorable riffs unfortunately splutters rather than roars towards the encore.

After an in-depth inspection of Oddie’s rig by sound engineers, the quartet return to a deafening applause. Chants of, “One more song!” are met with another beautiful swirling soundscape from Visions Of A Life, before Giant Peach provides the mosh with five more minutes of headbanging heaven. The finale sees Oddie pull out all his tricks and guitar effects and combine with Roswell’s own overdriven tone to produce an absolute colossal ending riff.

With a set encompassing the best tracks from their two studio albums to date, there’s still a sense that the crowd is craving another 30 minutes as Wolf Alice bow and leave the stage for good. While they may be labelled as ‘alt-rock’, tracks like Silk and their latest title track prove the Londoners are capable of so much more than just making a mosh erupt, especially with the dynamic and intimidating Ellie Roswell at their helm.