While London quartet Wolf Alice remains a bit of a secret here in the U.S., it’s a chart-topping cover star and festival main-stage mainstay across much of Europe.

The band’s first two albums, 2015’s My Love is Cool and its 2018 follow-up, Visions of a Life, both wield noise with so much poise that it was hard to imagine what this band couldn’t pull off. And yet, after winning the prestigious Mercury Prize in 2018 for its second album, Wolf Alice often presented itself in the press as shy, guarded and somewhat bewildered by success. The competence and confidence of the songs stood  in direct contrast with the band seeming not quite comfortable in its own skin, let alone the well-earned success so early in its career. 

If recent interviews are any indication, the band–and particularly singer Ellie Rowsell–have moved on from that awkward stage during the making of Blue Weekend. And if there was any doubt, it gets cleared up as Rowsell growls on “Smile: “I am what I am and I’m good at it/ And if you don’t like me, well that isn’t fucking relevant.”

While the arrangement is a bit grunge-tastic Wolf-Alice-By-The-Numbers, who cares. It’s a formula that works. But unlike the earlier Wolf Alice songs that it evokes, on this one Rowsell isn’t inhabiting a character or observing from a distance. This is her. And while this album is like its predecessors in its sonic variety and unpredictability, it’s Rowsell’s courage and willingness to make it personal that makes Blue Weekend not just a musical triumph but an emotional one. 

Rowsell and her bandmates–guitarist Joff Oddie, bassist Theo Ellis and drummer Joel Amey–reportedly were days away from finishing the album in Brussels when they found themselves essentially trapped together in the studio as the city went into COVID lockdown. With little else to do, they dove into every last detail of the album with producer Markus Dravs. The result is a stunning, textured and self-assured collection of songs and sounds with nuance, warmth and typical Wolf Alice variety.

From the ultra-aggressive “Play The Greatest Hits” to the spiraling sexual ecstasy of “Feeling Myself” (surely destined to be covered by Rihanna at some point), Blue Weekend doesn’t stay in one particular mood for very long, and it’s better for it. It doesn’t dwell in emotions so much as  reckons with them clearly and fearlessly. The album’s brightest moment, “Last Man On Earth,” starts with a simple piano and vocal foundation. It’s no surprise when the song follows power ballad rules to build into something bigger mid-song. But even though we see it coming a mile away, it still packs a punch. You might know the rocket is going to launch, but you’re still in awe when it soars. 

“No Hard Feelings” avoids breakup song cliches by capturing a beautiful post-heartbreak perspective that comes from understanding that relationships don’t necessarily have to last to be successful. Over a sad but determined guitar accompaniment, Rowsell evokes the final days of a partnership as a thread wearing thin before wondering, “Would we ever tie the knot/ Well how long is a piece of string?” In a just musical universe, “No hard feelings honey and we both get the win” would go down as one of the best closing lines of a song in recent memory.

“Delicious Things” is a sleek California groove with a first-person account of shady opportunists and sleazy indulgences in the Hollywood Hills as the singer flirts with stardom while not being completely comfortable with it.

“I don’t belong here though it’s really quite fun,” Rowsell whisper-raps, margarita in hand, as she hooks up with a coked-out suitor and muses about finding drugs of her own. A swirl of gauzy guitars give way to a lonely piano outro as the song glides back to Earth like the comedown after an epic night out. At the end of the song, she ends up calling her mom.

There are few things more exciting in rock music than when a band finds the freedom and self-possession required to truly come into its own. Blue Weekend is the sound of precisely that. It’s a full spectrum emotional journey that comforts as much as it challenges. Even for a band that started out strong and kept topping itself, this is an unexpectedly huge leap forward.

Follow Skott Bennett at Twitter.com/skottbennett.