The Clearing

by Wolf Alice

Overview

The Clearing may be Wolf Alice's first major-label album, but they remain resolutely independent. On their fourth full-length, they celebrate personal and creative freedom with grand gestures that, at this point in their career, they've more than earned. Frequently, this autonomy means defying expectations: Wolf Alice could probably make gauzy dream pop anthems forever, but with the help of producer Greg Kurstin, they trade Blue Weekend's clouds of guitars and synths for something more organic. Lavish strings and piano, fuzzed-out riffs, and brisk acoustic strumming take the lead, and it's as glorious to hear the band breathe new life into classic instrumentation as it was to hear them play with effects pedals and electronics before. Throughout The Clearing, Wolf Alice believe in the power of rock & roll to bring fantasies to life and reflect inner truths. Nowhere is this more apparent than on "Bloom Baby Bloom." A fierce, glittering manifesto that could be a collaboration between Kate Bush and Heart, it stomps and soars with the power of knowing one's own strength no matter what anyone else thinks. "I won't flower in spoiled earth," Ellie Rowsell croons, leaving her disbelievers in the dust. While Wolf Alice echo the greats, the passion and excitement they bring to the album is theirs alone. On "Just Two Girls," they pair the airy heights of ABBA and Olivia Newton-John with a decidedly 21st century view of female friendship, and on "Bread Butter Tea Sugar," they make its bouncy glam rock groove and Queen-ly maximalism their own. The band still pack a punch when they strip things down, particularly on the juggernaut "White Horses," where Rowsell and Joel Amey trade vocals over a spellbinding motoric folk rhythm. Uniting all these moods is Rowsell, who's looser, more versatile, and more open than ever on The Clearing. There's a Karen Carpenter smoothness to her voice on "Safe in the World"; on "Midnight Song," she harks back to the heyday of British psych-folk with ease. Her lyrics have never felt as intimate as they do on "Play It Out," a meditation on maturity and acceptance that captures the urgency of living fully with vivid imagery like ¿Watch me build castles in the hourglass sand.¿ Its confessions are topped only by ¿The Sofa,¿ where lying down watching reruns doubles as a profound philosophical breakthrough. "Hope I can accept the wild thing in me/Hope nobody comes to tame her/And she can be free," Rowsell sings, and as her reflections on weariness, dreams, and desire swell to epic proportions, they always sound completely genuine. The same can be said of The Clearing as a whole. A triumph of ambition and heart, each of its songs feels like an epiphany. Together, they form a portrait of a band growing into their status as one of the U.K.'s most vital acts. It's a thing of beauty to hear Wolf Alice bloom, baby, bloom. ~ Heather Phares

Product Details

Release Date:	08/22/2025
Label:	Rca
UPC:	0198029089912

Tracks

1. Thorns
2. Bloom Baby Bloom
3. Just Two Girls
4. Leaning Against the Wall
5. Passenger Seat
6. Play It Out
7. Bread Butter Tea Sugar
8. Safe in the World
9. Midnight Song
10. White Horses
11. The Sofa

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Wolf Alice   Primary Artist