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Wolf Alice, the flamboyant rock band endorsed by Harry Styles
The British quartet Wolf Alice will release its fourth album, The Clearing, on August 22nd, 2025. A brilliant, refined record that cements the status of the iconic band. Interview.
By Alexis Thibault.
Published on 14 August 2025. Updated on 18 August 2025.
Wolf Alice, a rock band that opened for Harry Styles
The duo Wolf Alice started out almost by accident in the early 2010s. Singer and guitarist Ellie Roswell, a solitary figure from the barley fields of Cornwall, wrote music in secret. Guitarist Joff Oddie lived in Surrey, near a large roundabout covered with grass. He spent most of his time playing guitar and shouting “car!” whenever a vehicle approached the traffic island… Wolf Alice started out as a duo. The quartet took shape when bassist Theo Ellis and drummer Joel Amey joined them. Cold rehearsal basements, tiny local gigs, the raw fragility of their stage debuts… It was all there.
But very quickly, the band moved beyond the indie scene, opening for the Foo Fighters and Liam Gallagher (Oasis) in 2018, and for Harry Styles in 2022. Before that, My Love Is Cool (2015) laid the groundwork. Visions of a Life (2017) dug deeper. And Blue Weekend (2021) dared to blend romance with brutality. Their new record, The Clearing, will be released on August 22, 2025. It was written in Seven Sisters, under the grey skies of North London, then recorded in Los Angeles with Greg Kurstin, a jazz-trained producer who has worked with Adele, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé…
Truth be told, the music played by Wolf Alice is not just for dancing. It offers a remedy against the dull pain of anxiety. You could easily picture yourself listening to it around 6pm, driving while the light struggles to emerge through the trees. But how do the band members themselves describe their music? “A giant Martini glass set up in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern. A 25-meter-high glass. And instead of an olive, there’s the sun.”
The Clearing, Wolf Alice’s new album
Bloom Baby Bloom, the first track they unveiled from their album The Clearing signals a deliberate shift. Ellie Rowsell puts down her guitar to focus on her voice – a rock instrument in itself, oscillating between raw energy and melodic control. Both sensual and full of tension, the result conjures up a spectral Axl Rose (Guns N’ Roses) wandering through an alternative pop landscape.
The Sofa, the second single released on July 11th, 2025, ventures into a more introspective territory. Ellie Rowsell has set aside her guitar on several tracks. This symbolic gesture allows her voice to rise above the production. She appears naked, solemn, almost incantatory. At times, it recalls Beth Gibbons, Siouxsie Sioux, Stevie Nicks, or a supercharged version of Kate Bush. “We wanted these songs to feel as if they were being played live in a room. We used to write songs while playing Skins trailers in the background…”
The album’s visual identity is splendid. “Photographer Rachel Fleminger Hudson listened to the record a lot. She created vast mood boards inspired by the images and sensations it evoked in her,” the band explains. “She felt like the album was about performance, nature, and home. The idea of the spotlight as a kind of clearing on stage really resonated with us. She built an entire visual world of her own out of ours.”
Wolf Alice, or the art of flamboyant simplicity
For Wolf Alice, simplicity comes with age. The further you go, the harder it becomes to stay simple. It’s easy to get lost in technical possibilities. Choosing simplicity therefore requires courage. More often than not, the most powerful works are also the most pared down. This new album thus emerges as something more spontaneous and deliberate.
How does Wolf Alice reflect on its musical evolution? Numéro asked them directly: “The tracks White Leather (2015) and Planet Hunter(2017) are both very guitar-driven in their own way. You can sense a progression in the use of pedals, a desire to experiment more. The lyrics are evolving too. The themes are similar, but expressed with greater intensity. By the time we got to How Can I Make It OK? (2021), you could feel a desire to be less vague, more explicit and bolder with synthesizers.”
They later mentioned some tracks on their new album as follows: “Maybe now we’re less melancholic. When we were younger, writing a joyful song felt almost impossible. Too risky, too kitsch. Now we’re thinking, ‘Who cares? If it’s fun to play, we’ll do it’. Maybe it’s a step backward in order to move forward. We’re stripping things away. Piano, bass, drums, a touch of guitar. That kind of restraint is one of the most demanding exercises.”
The Clearing by Wolf Alice, coming out on August 22nd, 2025. Live concert on November 14th at Le Transbordeur in Lyon, November 15th at Le Bikini in Toulouse, and November 25th at the Zénith in Paris.
