By Alyce Ruby
Ahead of the band’s upcoming album ‘Blue Weekend’, out on June 11th, Wolf Alice have released their first single since 2017. ‘The Last Man on Earth’ is the only music we’ve heard from the quartet in 4 years, since the Mercury Prize winning ‘Visions of a Life’.
The first half of the track is solely focused on front woman, Ellie Rowsell’s vocals carried by a simple, delicate piano melody. A slow building ballad, unlike anything the band has done in the past. It’s the most stripped back we’ve heard them until the chorus explodes into a gospel-like bridge, an almost funk sound, finally into the alternative rock finale and then ending the same way the track started.
It’s about the arrogance of humans, Rowsell was inspired after reading Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 ‘Cat’s Cradle’ and the line, “peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” She explained in a press statement, “I thought, ‘Uh, your peculiar travel suggestion isn’t a dancing lesson from God – it’s just a travel suggestion!’ Why does everything need to mean something more?”
The lyrics call us out for finding ourselves in everything we listen to, read or do, finding a way to relate everything to our own lives. It calls on us to ask ourselves, is this really about you? Wolf Alice have always been genius in their song writing, and this single is no exception. Even after four years, they’ve come back stronger.
If this track is an insight to what the rest of ‘Blue Weekend’ will sound like, I’m excited to hear this new side of the band ****1/2
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