The Clearing by Wolf Alice
'The Clearing' by Wolf Alice
By moving from the independent label Dirty Hit to RCA, and by recruiting producer Greg Kurstin—a Grammy winner who has worked with Kylie Minogue and Adele as well as with Beck and Foo Fighters—Wolf Alice signaled bigger aspirations, now confirmed by the North London band’s fourth long-player, The Clearing.
A key aspiration is to expand Ellie Rowsell’s range and power as the frontperson, and she fills the larger spaces with thoughtful ease, gradually unfolding her wings rather than immediately flinging them to their full span.
Even Rowsell seems a touch surprised by what the musical variety brings out in her: although the T. Rex swagger of “Bloom Baby Bloom” gives her ample chance to belt, in the sweeter moments she could be a glam version of Olivia Newton-John, and the Sunday-afternoon torpor of “The Sofa” has enough pop grandiosity to let her express a Karen Carpenter silkiness.
Because the other members of Wolf Alice—drummer Joel Amey, guitarist Joff Oddie, and bassist Theo Ellis—are Rowsell’s co-writers, they’re hardly flicking through phone texts while she parades. They steady the theatricality of “Thorns,” an opener that leans toward Oasis or the Verve; tighten the laddish, Faces-style folk of “Leaning Against the Wall”; and tactfully support Rowsell’s hoarse hesitation in the piano ballad “Play It Out.”
Kurstin plays a few instruments too, but neither his playing nor his production overshadows the band. He finds the right spots for Amey and Rowsell to duet within the intimately layered acoustic rock of “White Horses”; helps arrange the strings to lift “Midnight Song” toward Goldfrapp mysticism; and brightens the Beatles-meet-Kinks, little-England charms of “Bread Butter Sugar Tea.”
Wolf Alice doesn’t sound particularly like any other acts on Kurstin’s CV. The Clearing is the band’s conscious attempt to go bigger and broader than it’s done before, and also an attempt to sound like itself. Each attempt succeeds admirably.
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