Last year, Wolf Alice singer Ellie Rowsell told the Observer that she was reading Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life, which had introduced her to the joys of US hardcore punk. “I’m a bit worried now that our second LP is going to be full of two-minute 180bpm songs about not giving a fuck,” she fretted.
For two minutes here, this is exactly how they sound. Yoo Fuk is an eruption of expletive-laden pure vitriol with the subtlety of a blowtorch. “You bore me to death,” Rowsell rages at an unidentified ex, finishing with an extended held note at the end of the word “shit”. It’s very juvenile, knowingly comical and absolutely ace.
However, only minutes earlier, they sounded completely different. Opener Don’t Delete the Kisses is beautiful and ethereal, a gossamer electronic shimmer that is closer to the Cocteau Twins or Julee Cruise’s songs for Twin Peaks than punk rock. Wolf Alice are seen as an archetypal indie guitar band, but this doesn’t feature guitars at all.
Between these two songs lies the story of their shapeshifting return. My Love Is Cool won them many friends in 2015 with its postmodern mix of shoegaze and grunge, but other songs unveiled from forthcoming second album Visions of a Lifespan take in psychedelia, krautrock and effects-pedal driven Beatley guitar pop. The giddy, pop-funk Beautifully Unconventional might even have a faint melodic nod to Aretha Franklin’s Respect. It’s an eclectic palette within comfortable boundaries; they never overreach themselves or try to shoehorn in Mongolian nose flute drum’n’bass (not yet, anyway).
Everything is held together by the same strong pop sensibility that meant their first album did the 90s indie rock thing better than most of the re-formed originals, and drummer Joel Amey anchors the sound with the sort of rock-solid slap that could get him a job in a metal band. The elfin yet bovver-booted Rowsell’s singing is always on point, whether she’s purring or screaming.
In the sort of great, sweaty little venue they came up in, the Londoners still know how to play a gig. Skinhead bassist Theo Ellis ends up topless and scolds people to watch with their eyes, not through their phones. Joff Oddie hurls his guitar in the air, and Rowsell ends up singing while being held aloft by the audience’s hands. What a comeback.
• At Westgarth Social Club, Middlesbrough, 17 August. Box office: 0871-220 0260. At Fat Sam’s, Dundee, 18 August. Box office: 0871-220 0260. Then touring.
