Album Review: The Clearing by Wolf Alice

Twitter and micro-blogging site Tumblr were at their height, with a sub-genre of teens and 20-somethings predominantly discovering, re-posting, and obsessing over the latest guitar driven bands. Amongst this era, stood the quiet rumblings of the North London quartet Wolf Alice, who, despite not gaining the quick traction of The 1975, HAIM and those alike, have climbed the ranks with increasing grandeur with every release. With a Mercury Prize win for 2017's second album Visions Of A Life, BRIT nominations and a variety of accolades that is quite frankly too long to list, Wolf Alice have not only managed to endure, but evolve.

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A decade on from their dazzling debut, 2015's My Love Is Cool, Wolf Alice still somehow feel like a "new" band. They've won the Mercury Prize, topped the UK charts with Blue Weekend, and commanded Glastonbury's main stage multiple times. Yet despite their success, they've yet to become a household name. Even after clinching the Brit Award for Best British Group in 2022, some turned to social media asking, "Who the heck are Wolf Alice?" Meanwhile, bands with far less depth have managed to dominate the spotlight.

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Opening a record about what we might call a mid-youth crisis with a song called Thorns feels appropriate; the thematic preoccupations of this fourth record by Wolf Alice are prickly ones. Lyrically, the album plays like frontwoman Ellie Rowsell's odyssey through the five stages of grief, as she comes to terms with the fact that, no, she hasn't gotten it all figured out in her thirties. She does so through moments of both high drama (the operatic Bloom Baby Bloom) and fuzzy-headed resignation (gorgeous closer The Sofa).

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Out of the gates, Wolf Alice were poised to make it big with a dynamic sound that straddled alternative and indie. Lead singer Ellie Roswell delivered intensity and beauty in equal measure, which set them apart from their peers. If they brandished a distinctly 1990s tendency toward loud-soft-loud, that was by intention. This approach continued until, most recently, Blue Weekend (2021), where the overall impact was massive even if it contained moments that barely rose above a whisper.

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To run through the list of accolades that Wolf Alice have racked up over the course of their 13 years as a band feels a little obsolete at this stage. But have no doubt, on fourth album 'The Clearing', they've built upon their already-stellar legacy to once again create a record that feels entirely vital; it's another perfectly-pitched stepping stone to edge them even closer to full-on legendary status. .

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Wolf Alice have reached the end of one chapter, and are ready to write the next. Their long-time deal with Dirty Hit now at a finish, the band have signed to major label RCA. Going bigger, bolder than ever before, the Greg Kurstin-produced new album 'The Clearing' finds a band reaching outwards, only to touch their roots; it's a band who can travel the world, only to find solace in their native Seven Sisters.

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The retro-chic aesthetic of the artwork for Wolf Alice's fourth studio album, The Clearing, is reflective of the music itself, which finds the English rock band adding the hazy, Laurel Canyon hues of early-'70s folk to its already varied sonic palette. The sun-kissed elegance of a song like "Delicious Things," from 2021's Blue Weekend, serves as a blueprint for much of the album. But, crucially, the band retains its signature punch.

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Let it be said that Wolf Alice's 'Bloom Baby Bloom' is one of the most delightfully bonkers singles of 2025. It opens with a repetitive piano motif as though a minimalist master like Steve Reich had laid the foundations. The drums, bass and percussion enter the fray with tightly composed crispness. The proggier verses find their foil in the grandiloquently anthemic chorus.

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