Day 104: Wolf Alice – The Clearing
I’ve had a bit of a routine this year: I hear a Wolf Alice song, I like the Wolf Alice song, I put it on a playlist. Or I hear a Wolf Alice song, I don’t put it on a playlist, but I think about how it’s a good song. And yet I never sit down and think, “I like every song I’ve heard from that new Wolf Alice record, maybe I should actually listen to it.” Am I stupid or do I subconsciously deny myself pleasure? Possibly worth exploring in therapy.
Album cover courtesy of Columbia Records
I was asked to write a list of my favourite songs from 2025, so I was going through my archives and found “Bloom Baby Bloom”. It made its way onto the list of best songs of the year, so I thought it’s high time to hear the full album where it’s from.
The Clearing is Wolf Alice’s fourth album and it was released in August this year. They’re an English band but it was recorded in LA with producer Greg Kurstin, who has worked with industry greats like Paul McCartney, Beyoncé and Kylie Minogue. It’s a sort of pop-ish rock record with ‘70s rock and shoegaze influences that represents a bit of a clearer and more cohesive direction for the band. It’s the group’s first album released under their new contract with Columbia Records.
I chose the wrong day for this record. I enjoyed listening to it, but it’s Saturday night so I don’t have as much time to write about it as I’d like to, because this one would deserve a write up with time, effort and love put into it. When was the last time I heard a recent album from a current rock band that I loved this much? I genuinely can’t remember.
Don’t get me wrong, there are great bands kicking about, but it’s been ages since I last found a record that goes down in my internal best rock albums of all time-list, and this one got me so riled up with excitement that I genuinely thought it could be a 10.
It’s not, though, but it’s right at the precipice of it. I never knew what was coming next and I had heard quite a few of the songs. There is so much variety in this record, the songwriting is impeccable. I also couldn’t write about Wolf Alice without talking about what an incredible singer and frontwoman Ellie Rowsell is, I remember seeing a video of them performing before actually having listened to Wolf Alice at all and she’s so damn talented and charismatic, it’s a wonder they’re not one of the biggest bands around at the moment.
But even without that, I don’t know why they’re not bigger just on the merit of their songs alone. “Bloom Baby Bloom” is so big and theatrical and just mind-blowingly good, but other songs are just as good. “Leaning Against the Wall” could probably also make it to my list of the year’s top songs. And I love “Just Two Girls”, it makes me want to skip home from a bar with all of the ladies of the world arm in arm.
I took too long to listen to the full album and I was definitely not disappointed. It’s a 9.5/10. It’s somewhere fairly high on my list of AOTY contenders.