The Clearing is not my favourite album of all time. It may not even be my favourite album of the year (although that could change with further listens). But it is fantastic. It’s fantastic, because it’s exactly what it should be.
10 years after the release of their first studio album, My Love Is Cool, The Clearing provides Wolf Alice’s freshest instalment to their arsenal.
This piece shall serve partially as a review of this new project, but also as an article of appreciation for one of the most under-appreciated bands of the 21st century.
– Full disclosure, during university, I had a Wolf Alice poster in my bedroom. A slight bias, therefore, can be expected –
I am not a student of music. I play the odd bit of guitar, as well as a soupçon of the drums, and I’m frankly too shy to play what I do know to people when they come around. I won’t break this album down track by track, making comments on the production, what pedals they use, what key changes they didn’t make. What I’m really hear for, without giving too much away, is celebration.
Another poster that featured on my wall at university, as well as before, was that of the Arctic Monkeys. The boys from High Green Sheffield have certainly had greater highs than Wolf Alice, despite being in the same decade of their lives – three Glastonbury headline slots, for reference. But despite only being in their late thirties, they seem to have a relatively fractured fan base, following their latest two releases, Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino, and The Car. While I personally appreciate the unashamed nature of these records, I completely understand the polarising effect they had on many of their fans, who were more used to hearing about sticky dancefloors and DJ sets.
If one has the misfortune of spending time in the comment section of TikTok, you would also find that some fans have commented that the early releases of The Clearing didn’t sound a whole lot like Wolf Alice either. But last Friday, when the full record was available on streaming services, it became clear that this paranoia was unwarranted.
There are certain groups of people I don’t have much time for in this world. Those in the House of Commons, those who don’t cringe when calling themselves an “influencer”, and of course, second-home owners in Salcombe. But my distaste is just as strong for those individuals who expect two records, released four years apart, to be exactly the same, despite the growth, ageing, and maturity of the band members developing.
The Clearing provides the listener with a Wolf Alice that is no longer scared of the “30-mark”. They are more confident, not only in their vocal and musical delivery, as seen with lead singer, Ellie Rowsell’s blossoming range, but in their vulnerability.
Vulnerability has always been one of the elements that keeps me coming back to the band in question, something that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Don’t delete the kisses, will forever be one of my favourite songs to play loudly in the car or in the shower for this reason. The Sofa maintains this quality. Its lyrics are, if anything, mundane, but perfectly fitting. It does a wonderful job of listing out several human desires in an extremely visceral manner, and in interviews I’ve seen with Rowsell, this seems to be exactly the intention.
This is the embrace of identity that is alluded to in the title of this piece. If you’re truly friends with someone, you want them to be the most authentic version of themselves. Even if this means they won’t watch that TV show with you anymore that they secretly always hated, you’ll put up with that because they’re not scared of telling you how they feel anymore – a quality far more important than putting up with Gossip Girl. Much like yourself, you can never entirely understand the entire nature of another. But if you trust that person, and if you love that person, then their evolution into the next stage of their life is one of the most beautiful gifts true friendships can bestow. So, in the case of The Clearing, when each band member perform in a more expressive way that ever before, you don’t just feel a sense of happiness of the dazzling music in your ears, but a sense of happiness for the direction that the artists creating this music find themselves heading towards.
One subject that both this record and the two latest Arctic Monkeys records share is the focus on the piano. The nature of the instrument provides an unspoken maturity to the records, but for me, the nature in which Wolf Alice uses it does a far better job at not overtly distancing themselves from their former work. Wolf Alice uses the piano to add a jaunty nuance to their records. On the contrary, a cynic may say Alex Turner simply ran out of AM-esc riffs to write, and therefore a fundamental change was required.
Whatever you may believe, there is clearly a lot in common between the two acts. What differentiates the two is the fan reaction, and I believe this has everything to do with what the bands stand for. An advantage, perhaps, of having a more petite following is that there is less variety in the expectation of your record.
Range is a word that I keep coming back to with this record. Vocally, sonically, and in the mood of each song. Tracks such as Midnight Song feel like a throwback to some of the records on Silk, whereas White Horses, where drummer Joel Amey gets his long-awaited vocal lead, is simply incredibly fun, a track that blends the DNA of the band with the acoustic guitar performance akin to Jigsaw falling into place. Countless albums have come and gone over the years, where the promotional singles are bursting with acidity and decadence, and the rest of the album is as grey and mushy as cold porridge. And while Bloom Baby Bloom, and The Sofa, are savoury and decadent in their nature, they aren’t the songs I hum to myself in the hours following listening to this record.
To put it simply, this album is cool. This album is a really great time. The old records aren’t going anywhere. Any difference identified in this album, compared to those before, doesn’t signal an end of an era. Rather, it’s a beautiful re-fresh, adding colours more vibrant than before.
I love Wolf Alice, and their newest work makes me love them even more.
Johannus Jacobus 