‘Giant Peach’: The Wolf Alice song that can unlock the future
I’m never going to be a boxer, that much is for sure. At the ripe old age of 29 and with zero fights to my name, I think the time for me to have dustups in the squared circle has passed. And it’s a great shame because it means I’ll most likely live my whole life without getting a chance to walk out to my chosen entrance song. Instead, I have to think back to my first ever live radio show and savour the moment I felt ten feet tall inside a recording booth, as I prepared to be unveiled to a grand total of five listeners.
That day, the song of choice was ‘Ain’t Nice’ by Viagra Boys. A meaty powerhouse of a track, that had four beats per bar and a distorted guitar riff that proverbially booted down the doors of the Green Man Festival radio station and told the quiet hills of mid-Wales that I had arrived.
Regardless of the insignificance of that moment to a wider audience, pressing play on that song will live long in my memory. Because, as a present-day music journalist and a past-tense music broadcasting nerd, it was a moment I had thought about with great detail, for one specific reason. Somewhere in the depths of my doom-scrolling, I came across an interview with Annie Mac, emotionally recalling the first song she played on her new music radio show and the subsequent importance it will forever represent.
The song was ‘Giant Peach’ by Wolf Alice. In my curiosity to listen to the song with renewed context, I flicked it on and immediately understood why it would serve as such a defiant opening to any musical chapter. 20 seconds of distorted feedback sparks a light of dramatic tension, which bursts into flames come the introduction of the full band. When layered vocal ad-libs fly in with bending guitar lines, it becomes a monster of a song that puffs your chest out.
It’s not surprising Wolf Alice have this in their arsenal. They have proved it on more than one occasion with tracks like ‘Yuk Foo’ and ‘Lisbon’, but there’s a case to be made for the absence of that in people’s perception of the band. They’ve somewhat mastered the art of sentimental alt-rock, led by Ellie Rowsell’s voice that has an uncanny knack of capturing the fragile essence of millennial adolescence. And such is the breadth of her songwriting and vocal ability that the band can justifiably lean into those sensibilities and create thunderous ballads like ‘The Last Man on Earth’ or ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’.
But for me, there’s something undeniably appealing about the band when they put their foot on the floor and rev the engines. This is a feeling I had confirmed when I caught them at a festival on the tour for their third album, and while I watched the majority of the set, impressed with their range, it was when they then dropped into ‘Giant Peach’ that my attention turned into curiosity.
Their latest single ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ is a sort of ambitious showing of a what may be a new genre-bending project in The Clearing, whereby their pop-rock sensibilities are tinged slightly with the experimetnalism of a Cate Le Bon. And while it’s undoubtedly ushering a new exciting chapter for the band, it’s being presented with a defiant sense of confidence that makes the entire prospect all the more tantalising.
Almost like the boxer I never got to be, the band seemed to have returned on this record with their hood up, hands gloved and face covered in war paint. They know exactly who they are as artists, feel no pressure to answer to anyone and in Ellie Rowsell, have a fearless leader whom they can trustingly follow into the creative breaches. And so, as the album release draws ever closer and the next chapter of the band begins to unfold, I’m hoping the ‘Giant Peach’ from My Love Is Cool has grown into something even bigger, even bolder and more aggressive.
