Wilder Music

By Niall Mirza.

The twilight zone between TikTok virality and superstardom is rare, but when you manage to catch it, it feels sacred. Julia Wolf is living in that liminal phase: hundreds of thousands of likes online, while playing to a sold-out room of just 300 people in London. A breakout star of the TikTok era, she blends bedroom-pop vulnerability with an ambitious genre-bending sound.

Stepping onto the stage with Loser blasting through almost-deafening speakers, it didn’t matter whether she was singing to 300 or 30,000. The energy was palpable. Loser was the first of many songs from her latest album, PRESSURE, to be played that night. She played almost the entire album throughout her set, except for Fingernails. Interspersed were old favourites, documenting Wolf’s former R&B project, her grunge-infused pop, and countless heart-wrenching ballads. Each track showcased the extent of her range, supported by a band that could match every energy, from the heaviest to the softest, with ease.

However, the consistent standout was found in Wolf’s unique vocals. Breathy intimacy meets raw power in each line, adding edge to her ballads and an eerie warmth to her hardest-hitting songs. This was most effective on FYP, a track flipping effortlessly between verses riddled in self-doubt and a confident chorus, topped up with a tongue-in-cheek hater energy communicated through her dynamic vocal range. This quality also poured through on ballads like Life Is a Storm, adding a gothic, sharper edge to these more intimate tracks.

Her range extended beyond just the genre of the music and its vocals. One moment, she was dedicating Sunshine State to her ‘Florida man’ – quite possibly the luckiest guy in the room – and, in the next breath, addressing her scream-along hit Jennifer’s Body to none other than Megan Fox. The former was given its space to breathe, with Wolf’s vocals consuming the small but fitting room, while the latter was belted by each and every person in the audience: the mic pointed at us. Closing the show, she played a song that I believe is her magnum opus: You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood, a quiet, unsure ballad that follows a Midwest emo riff into a powerful, emotionally charged, and resentful album closer. The final track she played, In My Room, boasts thirty million streams on Spotify, cementing Julia Wolf as a rising force on her way to superstardom. Taken aback by its pure force, I soon realised that this might be one of the last times the song will ever be sung to a room so small.

Though short, ending only fifty or so minutes after it started, the set hits all the marks. It celebrates Wolf’s origins, traces the journey of her genre change, and ultimately, puts all eyes on PRESSURE. In support of this album, Julia Wolf will embark on another European/UK tour this winter, playing in larger venues such as O2 Academy Islington in London.

Beyond her role as an incredible artist, Wolf is a wonderful person. Meeting a few fans outside the venue before the show, I witnessed firsthand from a fan perspective how down-to-earth and lovely she truly is. Moments like this – when an artist is on the edge of something bigger – don’t come often. Julia Wolf may still be in the twilight, but she’s ready for the sun to come up.