[imagesource: Jordan Hemingway]

There’s nothing wrong with listening to your old favourites, over and over again, but it’s good to branch out now and again.

As we lean into the weekend (can I get an amen?), here’s one album, and one band, that you might want to consider giving a bash.

But don’t take our word for it, because The Guardian has given Wolf Alice’s latest album, Blue Weekend, a rare five-star review.

The four-piece band, based out of London, already has a Mercury prize and a Grammy nomination under their belt, and it looks like their third album may be the best of the bunch.

The review says the album shows “massive ambitions exceptionally fulfilled” and adds that producer Markus Dravs – who has also worked with the likes of Coldplay, Arcade Fire, and Florence + the Machine – helps bring a touch of class:

Listening to Blue Weekend, you’re struck by an appealing sense of everything clicking into place. The sound is more polished and widescreen…

Without wishing to heap on unreasonable expectations, it has the distinct tang of an album that could be huge. There’s something undeniable about it, the beguiling sound of a band doing what they do exceptionally well, so that even the most devoted naysayer might be forced to understand its success.

Let’s have a listen to two tracks from the album – ‘The Last Man On Earth’ and ‘Smile’:

Perhaps not to everyone’s taste, but there’s plenty to like.

Just ask the folks at The Independent, who also dished out a five-star review:

The careening thrills of their teenage and early twenties tunes have been replaced by more assured – but still intensely emotional – of singer-songwriter Ellie Rowsell’s structures.

If you imagine their old songs as rally cars, the new ones are still driven as wildly, but with steelier focus and in-built roll cages.

Interesting car-music crossover there.

One more for the road, and that would be NME’s review – also five stars – calling Blue Weekend “a stone-cold masterpiece full of confidence and magic”:

On ‘Blue Weekend’, the band’s third album, [Rowsell’s] latest period of growth presents itself spectacularly – in a series of songs that showcase her best lyrics yet, ones that are, as she suggested, more confident and less guarded…

‘Blue Weekend’ is the group’s most cohesive listen, and keeps intact the restless spirit that makes their work so unpredictable and exciting.

There you have it.

If you’ve hung in this far, enjoy ‘No Hard Feelings’:

[sources:guardian&independent&nme]