Fresh from a performance at Glastonbury Festival this June and off the Rolling Stone UK’s June-July cover, Wolf Alice are not slowing down. Instead, the English rock band is leaning into a new sonic identity, one that’s less about youthful chaos and more about clarity, confidence, and charisma. With the release of their new single “The Sofa” and the announcement of their fourth studio album, The Clearing, due later this August, the band marks a striking evolution from their early days of grunge-pop volatility.
“Annoyingly, I didn’t feel any less nervous,” vocalist Ellie Rowsell tells Rolling Stone Philippines, reflecting on their Glastonbury set. “I was, if anything, more nervous than before. So I was like, ‘Ah, why isn’t this getting easier?’ But it felt more emotional… having a lot of our friends there. We’re really grateful to be there.”
Emotional honesty has always been central to Wolf Alice’s appeal, from the coming-of-age tension of 2017’s Visions of a Life to the lush introspection of 2021’s Blue Weekend. But The Clearing sees the band embracing a new palette, both lyrically and sonically. The shrieking, breathless urgency of “Yuk Foo” and the bittersweet surrender of “Don’t Delete the Kisses” have given way to something more measured and theatrical, still moving, but now with a satin sheen.
“Glam rock was about embracing certain theatrics and breathing life into rock and roll again,” drummer Joel Amey says. “Not saying that’s what we’ve done. But when I do think about maybe some of the touch points of glam rock, you see how you could join the dots. To me, The Clearing is a set of very performative songs.”
Where Blue Weekend flirted with the melodic stylings of The Beatles and David Bowie, it looks like The Clearing will dive headfirst into ‘70s rock iconography. Amey cites T. Rex as an influence, and the shift is audible. The album’s lead single, “Bloom Baby Bloom,” opens with a rolling bass riff and gallops forward with Rowsell’s voice front and center — a rock instrument in itself, soaring with both swagger and intent. The track, Rowsell says, was born from the desire “to focus on the performance element of a rock song and sing like Axl Rose, but to be singing a song about being a woman.”
The single’s music video, directed by Colin Solal Cardo, leans into full-blown glam fantasy, complete with glittery makeup and expressive choreography by Ryan Heffington, known for his work with Florence + The Machine and Christine and the Queens. It’s Wolf Alice at their most theatrical yet, and it works.
But while “Bloom Baby Bloom” kicks the door open, it’s “The Sofa” that gently closes it. A shimmering closer to the album, the track is slower, softer, more Bee Gees than Bowie (although the latter’s influence remains strong). Strings float around Rowsell’s voice as she sings about coming into her 30s and letting things just be.
“Let me lie here on the sofa,” she sings in the chorus. “Sometimes I just want to / be no one thing.”
“I saw this tweet the other day, which was like, when you’re 24 to 29, you really think this is your moment,” Roswell says. “It’s a really difficult age for some people because they feel like time is running out. And I think this song just says, ‘Don’t focus on where it is that you should be… just try and remain present.’ I wish I had thought about life more like that in the past.”
That kind of hindsight and the maturity that comes with it defines The Clearing. With the album, the band seems to be emerging from the reckless euphoria of their 20s with a sound that’s both stripped back and expansive.
“And while [the songs are] stripped back,” Amey adds, “they almost seem bigger than before to me… I think that’s down to everyone’s performances on the record and also down to our producer, Greg Kurstin, who knew how to push us in the nicest possible way.”
Whether this new direction is a permanent shift or just a creative detour remains to be seen. Rowsell is candid about how circumstance shapes her writing. “I was listening to a lot of soft rock and was inspired by that in making this album. But I was also just being lazy… It was easy to just sit down with an acoustic guitar or sit at the piano.”
Still, both Rowsell and Amey seem reluctant to leave this version of Wolf Alice behind. “I’m still actually really inspired by things that have inspired The Clearing,” says Amey. Rowsell agrees: “I’m still inspired by the songwriting and how melodic rock music was in the ‘70s.”
With The Clearing, Wolf Alice step into something more timeless: a sound that knows where it came from, but is unafraid to look ahead.
