Whether you’ve heard every album or haven’t kept up since “Moaning Lisa Smile,” you might still be surprised by the directions Wolf Alice takes on their latest record, The Clearing.
In approaching their fourth studio effort, bassist Theo Ellis tells ABC Audio, “The songwriting is at the core of this album.”
“I think it always has been, but I think this album really reflects our reverence for the craft of songwriting,” Ellis says.
Sonically, much of The Clearing is driven by the piano, which you can hear on the lead single, “Bloom Baby Bloom.” Ellis describes the piano as a “lynchpin” in frontwoman Ellie Rowsell‘s early demos for the album.
“It’s kind of like a guitar riff, but [it’s] being played on the piano,” Ellis says of “Bloom Baby Bloom.” “It felt like a really exciting song to explore, ’cause it kinda bridges the world from [Wolf Alice’s last album] Blue Weekend going into what The Clearing kinda became.”
Rowsell, meanwhile, found herself using her voice in new and different ways on The Clearing as she considered how to sing “more performatively.” Her voice on the songs “Leaning Against the Wall” and “Passenger Seat,” for example, has almost a country lilt to it.
“Our most performative songs were the heaviest songs and the ones that were the loudest and fastest, the most distorted,” Rowsell says. “I was interested in how our most performative songs could not rely those things.”
To see how that all comes together, you can catch Wolf Alice on their ongoing North American tour, which continues Tuesday in Toronto.
“I saw someone say our shows [are] ‘way more ridiculous’ than they had expected, and I kind of understand that,” Rowsell laughs. “It feels quite ridiculous, in a good way.”
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