Ahead Of The Pack

With their new album visions of a life on the way, London four-piece wolf alice have come roaring back.

- Paula Mejia

On a blisteringly hot July day, the band Wolf Alice find themselves on the northwest tip of Manhattan, near the Cloisters. The refurbished monastery-turned-museum, which lies just alongside the Hudson River, is a daytime respite for city dwellers who zip up the A line to take in riverside views and whimsical medieval art. It seems like an apt place to encounter the North London four-piece. For one thing, their name conjures up images of fairy tales, like Alice in Wonderland and Peter and the Wolf. And there’s also the fact that they write dazzlingly imaginative songs such as “Giant Peach,” and that their vocalist and guitarist, Ellie Rowsell, at one point tells me that she “spent a lot of [her] childhood playing make-believe.”

But they’re not here to poke around the museum. Instead they’re parked outside the nearby marina, sprawled in the (blissfully air-conditioned) back room of their tour van, cracking wise and snacking on cashews. They’re catching their breath before performing at a private event here tonight, one of many Stateside shows ahead of their upcoming album, Visions of a Life. Last night, the four-piece—composed of Rowsell, bass player Theo Ellis, drummer Joel Amey, and guitarist Joff Oddie—performed songs from both their new record and their Mercury Prize nominated debut, My Love Is Cool, to a rapturous, sold-out audience at Brooklyn’s Rough Trade.