Wolf Alice: ‘Our new album is 100 per cent not grunge’

Band say they've experimented with different sounds on debut record

Wolf Alice have spoken about the mix of genres on their forthcoming debut album, saying “it’s 100 per cent not a grunge record” and that it “will surprise people”.

Speaking in the new Albums of 2015 issue of NME, which is on newsstands from today and available digitally, singer Ellie Rowsell details the bands experimentation on the as-yet-untitled record, which will be their first release since 2014’s ‘Creature Songs’ EP. “It’s 100 percent not a grunge record. It’s a much braver record than that,” Rowsell says. “There’s a mix of genres on it. We’re using our instruments in different ways, like Joff [Oddie] using his guitar as a synth.”

She continues: “We’ve been making sounds that don’t necessarily sound like guitar and experimenting with the way we use our voices. We’ve tried to match the emotion of the songs in how they’re performed and recorded, tried to make a sad song really feel and sound sad.”

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Drummer Joel Amey adds that fans would be surprised by the sounds on the record, “because they surprised me when listening back to them. I’m kind of shocked we’ve made certain sounds – they’re really experimental and poppy. ‘What a guitar band can do’, in inverted commas, or what’s expected of us, we don’t want to settle for that.”

Tracks on the album, due sometime in Spring, include ‘Silk’, ‘A Giant Peach’ (“one of the best things we’ve recorded”), ‘Swallow Tale’ and ‘Lisbon’, which involves “really crazy elements”.

Meanwhile, Wolf Alice will soon embark on a UK tour that will see the band play their largest headline show to date at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire. The tour will kick off on March 23 at Glasgow’s Oran Mor and take in 14 dates throughout March and April.

Wolf Alice play:

Glasgow Oran Mor (March 23)
Nottingham Rescue Rooms (24)
Manchester Ritz (26)
Sheffield Leadmill (27)
Newcastle Riverside (28)
Birmingham Institute Library (31)
Cardiff Globe (April 1)
Bristol Trinity (2)
London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire (3)
Oxford O2 Academy 2 (4)
Reading Bowery District (7)
Bournemouth Old Firestation (8)
Brighton Concorde 2 (9)
Cambridge Junction (10)

To check the availability of Wolf Alice tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0844 858 6765.

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