By the time Visions of a Life dropped, Wolf Alice could’ve phoned it in and still had NME tripping over itself to call them the best British band since the concept of Britain. Instead, they took the scenic route—two years of touring, 50 to 60 half-baked song sketches, and a decision to “please themselves,” as guitarist Joff Oddie put it, which somehow didn't involve putting a synth through a meat grinder just for the hell of it (although Don’t Delete the Kisses comes close).
“There’s obviously some level of expectation outside the four of us,” Oddie said. “But… you just need to back yourself. Please yourself.” Which, thankfully, they did, resulting in an album that veers wildly from industrial growls to bedroom whispers without ever sounding like a playlist from someone having an identity crisis.
That chaotic cohesion didn’t come easy. “It’s kind of impossible to see an idea through to the end when you’re on the road,” Oddie admitted. Touring left them with fragments—riffs, half-songs, moods—scribbled in the margins of their lives. “It was almost like everyone was sketching,” he said, until they finally locked themselves in a rehearsal space and Frankensteined the pieces into something unpredictable and, miraculously, coherent.
The record opens with a left hook—Yuk Foo, a song so angry it should come with a warning label. “It is an angry song, and it was a time when I think we were all angrier,” Oddie said, referring not just to the band’s mood but the geopolitical trash fire that was 2016-2017. “Some of our favorite artists do that,” he added, citing Beck and Patrick Wolf as inspiration. “What’s more artistically liberating than doing what you want and letting everyone else wrestle with what it means?”
One of the most pleasant what-the-hell moments comes with Don’t Delete the Kisses, a track that sounds like someone smuggled a shoegaze band into a night bus rave. “It was a real challenge for us,” Oddie said, noting the band isn’t “well-versed in synthesis.” Still, the song's pulsing, swoony backdrop felt “appropriate,” even if he can’t quite explain why. “You just kind of go with what feels good.”
And what felt good also included getting political—sort of. While Oddie stops short of calling the record a protest album, he doesn't shy away from the climate it was born into. “We’re all real painful lefties,” he said proudly. “The left has been very quiet… and all the stupid things that have happened in the last two years finally got the political community in the UK a little bit more mobilized.”
Still, don’t expect them to have seen the revolution from a van window. “You’re in such a bubble,” Oddie explained. “You go to a music venue, a load of music fans turn up… it’s kind of difficult to see the opposition. You just gotta turn on Fox News, really, haven’t you?” (He quickly walked that back. “I would recommend not turning it on.”)
If that wasn't meta enough, they also starred in a tour documentary with a twist. Produced by 24 Hour Party People’s Michael Winterbottom, the film planted two actors posing as crew members inside the Wolf Alice touring machine to tell a fictional love story inside a very real rock tour. “We kind of feature as extras almost,” Oddie shrugged. “We had very little to do with it.”
It’s that constant sidestepping of expectation that makes Visions of a Life such a satisfying listen. Wolf Alice doesn’t want to be your favorite band—they just want to be their favorite band. And somehow, in the process, they became both.
Listen to the interview above and then check out "Don't Delete The Kisses" below!
