Wolf Alice — The Clearing: A Perfect Harmony Of IDENTITY & Performance

‘The Clearing’, signed album cover. Image credit: Rachel Fleminger Hudson, Wolf Alice

‘Here’s the stage, you’re the star.’

Clean, confident, and compelling, Wolf Alice have released their fourth studio album, a sidestep from their traditionally murkier sound. Neither restrained nor sensationalist, The Clearing is a clever depiction of the identity of a performer, making no attempts to hide the art of performance itself.

As Wolf Alice step into The Clearing and onto the stage of a different calibre, we’re looking at just what makes this album so good. Sincere and self-assured, it’s as complex as the journey of defining yourself.

‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ cover art. Image credit: Rachel Fleminger Hudson, Wolf Alice

Intentional Performativity: SOUNDTRACKING Life, As It Happens

‘I like the thrill of my performing.’

The Clearing begins like the classical opening credits of a film, though lyrically, ‘Thorns’ is playful and self-aware, so much that it’s acknowledged: ‘the credits roll, the curtain lifts’. That’s the intentional performativity – and it permeates the album. These songs are performed to become what they’re about.

An engine starts up ‘In The Passenger Seat’ and suddenly you’re in the car listening to the song Rowsell sings about with her. In ‘Just Two Girls’, the semi-spoken verses sound like the conversation between two best friends is happening as you hear it.

Lyrics and instrumentation build off each other to paint a crystal-clear soundscape, perhaps most evident in ‘Leaning Against The Wall’. Chatter sets the scene for the party where Rowsell indulges in the performance of trying to fall back in with an ex lover. It’s the grown up version of ‘White Leather’, this time with an acute awareness of the pedestal. The hedonistic deliveries of ‘It really really made the room sing, the way you said my name’ and ‘Is love our greatest performance?’ come crashing down straight after; a complete mirroring of the events in the song.

“The Clearing is less about trying to be someone you’re not, and more about stepping into the shoes of the role you were born to play. It’s the album Wolf Alice were destined to create.”

Everything is in place, like a perfectly rehearsed play — it’s almost musical theatre. That’s the point. This performativity isn’t fake or disguised, it’s embraced. The Clearing is less about trying to be someone you’re not, and more about stepping into the shoes of the role you were born to play. It’s the album Wolf Alice were destined to create.

Ellie Rowsell’s Self-Embrace In The Clearing

‘She likes the way I overhypothesise the people in the room.’

Frontwoman Ellie Rowsell wanted to use her voice as a rock instrument, and her ability to completely shift the dynamic in this album between songs and even lines is remarkable. In ‘Thorns’ and ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, her vocals weave like a violin over electric guitars, until she transforms into one too. 

But that’s what this album achieves so succinctly. Rowsell uses her ‘instrument’ to actively perform her role in each song. In ‘In The Passenger Seat’, she’s the carefree driver’s ‘girl’, in ‘Bread Butter Tea Sugar’, she’s the punky ‘badman’s whore’. In the heart wrenching ‘Play It Out’, she’s the woman who wants to be enough, and in ‘White Horses’, she’s the ‘floating nomad’. 

In softer tracks, Rowsell’s voice takes on a choral, angelic quality. If heaven exists, I’m pretty sure it sounds like the end of ‘Midnight Song’. Perhaps it’s only then that peace in her performance emerges, and it’s hard not to hear it as a direct reply to ‘After The Zero Hour’, from 2017 album, Visions of a Life. In closing track ‘The Sofa’, Rowsell embraces all the parts of herself, along with ‘the wild thing’, whether that’s her stage presence or perhaps the embodiment of ‘Wolf Alice’ itself. 

‘The Sofa’ cover art. Photo credit: Rachel Fleminger Hudson, Wolf Alice

Crafting An Album Of Identity

‘I don’t need to solve my unknown identity, just need an answer to the question in the taxi.’ 

If The Clearing is presented as a peaceful, lucid space, then Wolf Alice have demonstrated the ability to find their way there, or make it themselves. Swapping ethereal distortions for strong vocals and string instruments alongside blooming flowers and rolled down roofs, these are clear displays of the confidence this band deserves to embody.

The album is all about performance – and yet there’s no pretending. Whether it’s the blunt recognition of hair extensions in ‘Just Two Girls’, or Joel Amey’s thundering canter of drums before the empowered ‘White Horses’, there’s no obscurity in The Clearing. Identity is performed through these songs as transparently as a person is able to know themselves.

The Clearing: Exactly How It’s Supposed To Sound

Each song takes you into Wolf Alice’s world, a little bit more magical and a little bit more wild than reality, but not in the realm of fantasy or delusion. Rowsell’s songwriting takes small moments of sincerity and extends them into a notebook of ideas, masterfully brought to life by her bandmates. While some tracks lightheartedly fixate on the optimistic side of whatever’s bad for you, others are left with space to breathe, or backed by beautiful orchestral swells.

“In The Clearing, the line between identity and performance is blurred — as it surely is for one of Britain’s best bands — and that’s what makes this album so rich and rewarding to listen to.”

This is the album fans and critics have been waiting for Wolf Alice to make, with songs need a few days thought, each capturing a pivotal scene in the soundtrack. In The Clearing, the line between identity and performance is blurred — as it surely is for one of Britain’s best bands — and that’s what makes this album so rich and rewarding to listen to.

Listen to The Clearing on all steaming platforms now.