A full moon rises for Melbourne metalcore quintet Alpha Wolf as they embark on a belated national run of shows for their 2020 album 'A Quiet Place To Die'.
Alpha Wolf unleashed their brutal full-length last year, but have been unable to play it live until just recently."We got to play a few shows in Victoria in April, and they were our first shows back in over 12 months, which was crazy," guitarist Scott Simpson says.
"We put out our record toward the end of last year, so we hadn't had the chance to play those songs live until now. It was pretty nerve-racking getting to play them live for the first time; the first show back was terrifying, playing all these new songs we never played.
"It was so good to get back to it. For most people, especially heavy bands, the reason they write the songs they write is to get to play them live.
"To finally get to do that was super rewarding. People loved the new songs, which is always a good thing when you've waited so long to finally get to play them."
Alpha Wolf's newish album 'A Quiet Place To Die' is certainly not a quiet record to listen to – from start to finish, it is an exercise in brutality. "The motto of the band, you could say, is: We write music we like to listen to, and we pride ourselves on that. We're pretty hard on ourselves writing music," Scott says.
It comes after their 2019 EP 'Fault', and together the two records form a greater picture of a band maturing into the musical goal they had set for themselves. "'Fault' was a lot of tests for us, in the way that we had a new vocalist and drummer join the band," Scott explains.
"It was a big turning point in the band for us in every way. We toured a lot off that record; we got to play a whole lot of shows around the world off an EP, it was crazy.
"Going from 'Fault' to the full-length, we'd grown up a lot in that time and it all correlated to 'A Quiet Place To Die', which was a sound we started to figure out we wanted to do on the EP and then really found what we wanted to do for the album."
With their new album working to establish their dominance on the metalcore scene, Alpha Wolf prepare for an upcoming run of live shows, including slots on the Full Tilt Festival line-up (Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne) as well as their own headline tour.
"That's the one we've been looking forward to even before the album came out," Scott says of the album tour, which was previously booked and then cancelled due to COVID.
"We're just really excited. Being the album tour, we're going to be playing a lot of the songs for the first time, so we're really excited to show everyone around the country these new songs."
Alpha Wolf play Full Tilt Festival at Bella Vista Farm (Sydney) 31 July, Eaton's Hill Outdoors (Brisbane) 7 August, Burnley Park (Melbourne) 23 October.
Alpha Wolf 2021 Tour Dates
Thu 5 Aug - Amplifier (Perth)Fri 6 Aug - Jive (Adelaide)
Sun 8 Aug - Altar (Hobart)
Thu 12 Aug - The Tivoli (Brisbane)
Fri 13 Aug - Cambridge Hotel (Newcastle)
Sat 14 Aug - The Factory Theatre (Sydney)
Sun 15 Aug - 170 Russell (Melbourne)
