THE JOY FORMIDABLE The ambitious indie rockers explore a bolder, broader range of textures  After spending years refining their debut album, Welsh rockers the Joy Formidable wrote their follow-up, Wolf’s Law, on a much shorter timeline. Though the writing process started off in a familiar place, they didn’t let that limit them. “We went back to the basics of songwriting, which was me and Ritzy with a guitar, jamming vocal ideas over it, or... 

THE JOY FORMIDABBLE Wolf’s Law [Atlantic]  The sophomore effort from these Welsh alt-rockers offers guitars that crunch at heavy metal levels and vocals that soothe to the point of hypnosis. Mega distortion gives way to dreamy interludes and ethereal harmony, and frontwoman Ritzy Bryan’s voice conjures the drama and enchantment of Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan. On such tracks as “Tendons,” guttural bass lines drop to the depths of...