Wolf Alice – ‘The Clearing’ album review: the 1970s and 2020s are having a lovechild

Posted On August 21, 2025August 21, 2025

From a few mere opening notes on a piano, Wolf Alice are ready to rocket launch into a whole new era. Sure, that’s what they all say – but for a band who, not so long ago, were lamenting teenage romance and adolescent yearning, The Clearing is like swapping nursery rhymes with Freddie Mercury.

Ending their longest musical drought to date with their fourth studio album, The Clearing, the London four-piece are undeniably at the most blazing and ferocious point they have ever been, with singer Ellie Rowsell most fiercely at the helm. For fans expecting the band’s previous wispy vocals and ethereal soundscapes, this album is not the place to look. It seems that Wolf Alice’s transition from Dirty Hit to Sony Music, with the help of classic pop producer Greg Kurstin, has been the key to unlocking their ability to truly run wild.

From this springboard, the most immediately striking thing to note is a newfound grit that soars from Rowsell’s vocals. This already turned heads within the comeback single ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, the record’s second track, but it is something that maintains forcefully throughout the course of the 11 tracks. It doesn’t mean there aren’t tender moments – far from it, especially in songs like ‘Play It Out’ – but it makes it abundantly clear that although Wolf Alice have pivoted sonic direction, they are very much in control with her at the helm.

As such, the 1970s wonderworld explodes into effervescent life, like a rollercoaster ride tracking through every musical moment of the decade, without equally sounding like a simple rehash of what has come before. The band have been upfront about this as their primary influence – Rowsell admitted that on ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, she wanted to “sing like Axl Rose, but to be singing a song about being a woman”. But there’s also ‘Just Two Girls’, shining with the California folk of Joni Mitchell, ‘Bread Butter Tea Sugar’, which screams of a pomp and flair that only Queen could previously muster, and ‘Midnight Song’, giving off more than a hint of Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’.

This is not to suggest in any way that The Clearing is lacking in Wolf Alice’s own footprint, or that its overall allure is totally vintage. The record can only be described as if the sonics of 1975 and 2025 ran headfirst into each other and created a whole new life form. Although it’s completely distinct from anything else they have done on their three previous albums, the 11 songs symbolise a real foot forward in what this band will come to be regaled as – every bit as lovelorn, awestruck, and transcendent as they ever were, but now with the sure-footed assurance that they can truly square up to the big guns of rock, with a sexiness, edginess, and fire to boot.

With a new sound also beckons new horizons, and as Wolf Alice gear up to their first ever UK headline arena tour at the end of this year, The Clearing makes it evident that they are more than ready to take on this challenge. Using pianos, strings, electric guitars, and searing vocals as their weapons of choice, anything is possible. The only question is whether the next step will take them out of this world. 

Defining track: ‘The Thorns’ – it’s certainly one tactic for opening an album, by blowing your mind. For what it’s worth, I’ve listened to it four times at the point of writing, and cried every time. 

For fans of: Every ’70s rock star you’ve ever loved. 

A concluding comment from Freddie Mercury: “You’ve fucking done it, darlings.”

Release date: August 22nd, 2025 | Producer: Greg Kurstin | Label: Sony Music

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