WOLF ALICE have shared their new single, The Sofa, adding a further dimension to their highly anticipated fourth studio album, The Clearing, now confirmed for release on 22 August.
Following a triumphant return to the stage with a headlining festival performance at Primavera – during
which they unveiled The Sofa for the first time and, by the end, had thousands singing along – and a
history defining Glastonbury set on home soil, this new era announces Wolf Alice as a band in a league
entirely of their own.
The Sofa is the album’s psychological portrait and a microcosm of the wider themes it reckons with:
falling in love with your life for exactly what it is and finally letting go of unrealised dreams without
shame, guilt or disappointment as you grow older. Unravelling like a daydream on an idle afternoon,
The Sofa is a piano ballad fortified by the best songwriting of vocalist Ellie Rowsell’s career – radical in its
unflinching honesty. “Didn’t make it out to California / Where I thought I might clean the slate / Feels a
little like I’m stuck in Seven Sisters / North London, oh England / And maybe that’s OK,” sings Rowsell.
In abandoning the self-consciousness that weighs down your twenties, Wolf Alice have reached a point
of hard-won serenity.
“It’s about not trying so hard to figure everything out, reflecting on getting older and trying not to agonise
over things that have or haven’t happened in your life” shares lead singer Ellie. “It’s also about trying to get to gripswith the polarising aspects of one’s life when you’re in a band. You’ve just played a huge tour, and youcome home, and you have your dinner on the sofa. For me, it’s summed up in how I treat TV. I used to
never watch the same thing twice because I thought I’ve got so much to discover And now I’m like, it’s OK
if I just want to rewatch Peep Show for the thirteenth time.”
Shot on the streets of the band’s native North London in homage to the lyrics, the video for The Sofa
captures the day-dreamy spirit of the song in boldly coloured slow motion. Ellie is transported on a
surreal fantasy through the euphoric messiness of British summertime street life while never leaving
the comfort of her sofa. Inspired by classic street photography, these vignettes capture the blissed out
interactions of people from all walks of life, celebrating the shared joy we feel with strangers on a
sunny day. The video was directed by Fiona Jane Burgess (Christina Aguilera, girlinred, Gucci) and
features numerous Easter eggs for the band’s forthcoming album.
The single release follows Wolf Alice’s victorious return to Glastonbury Festival in June, performing a
razor sharp set of hits to a sunset crowd on the Other Stage. Combining fan favourites such as Bros and
Don’t Delete The Kisses with the jubilant new singles, the slot felt like a victory lap for a band truly at
the peak of their powers.
The Sofa comes after the album’s first single, Bloom Baby Bloom. A fiercely powerful introduction to
The Clearing, it’s an arresting ode to growth, evolution and expansion in life, music and art. With its
rolling bass riff, this first piece of new music in three years is a whip-smart detestosteroned twist on
heavy rock. It arrived alongside a video by noted alt-pop director Colin Solal Cardo, renowned for
collaborations with Charli XCX, Robyn and Christine & The Queens.
The video deconstructs a classic rock performance by drawing on Bob Fosse and All That Jazz, featuring
a brilliant performance from Ellie in the middle of a host of dancers, choreographed by Emmy Award-
winning choreographer Ryan Heffington (Euphoria, Sia, Kenzo and Margaret Qualley).
Watch the Bloom Baby Bloom video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBGcloF8LIY
Written in Seven Sisters and recorded in LA with Grammy-winning master producer Greg Kurstin last
year, The Clearing reveals where Wolf Alice stand sonically in 2025, delivering a supremely confident
collection of songs bursting with ambition, ideas and emotion.
Wolf Alice have come a long way since the North London quartet first emerged in 2013 as a young band
holding up a mirror to their own emerging generation. Today, The Clearing finds them at the peak of
their powers, grown into a band of generational importance. While the bruised euphoria of their debut
My Love Is Cool, which featured the Grammy-nominated Moaning Lisa Smile, both captured and
perfectly soundtracked the experience of youth first cutting their musical teeth, the 2018 follow up
Visions Of A Life cemented their rise with a Mercury Music Prize, before the precious hurt of 2022’s Blue
Weekend and its resultant UK number 1 and Brit Award for Best Group.
In the process, Ellie Rowsell has grown into a storytelling icon, weaving cautionary tales of
how your twenties will hurt you, but in valuable ways. Wolf Alice have also toured the world multiple
times headlining sold out tours, gracing numerous festival stages and supporting an array of key artists
including pop icon Harry Styles. This summer so far has seen them performing at the BBC Radio 1 Big
Weekend followed by a top spot at Glastonbury.
Both playful and serious, ironic and straight talking, The Clearing is a progressive shift from a band
whose exploration of love, loss and human connection has already articulated the coming-of-age
experience for a whole generation. It’s a classic pop-rock album that nods to the ‘70s while remaining
firmly rooted in the present. If Fleetwood Mac wrote an album today in North London, you’d get
somewhere close to this run of effortlessly grand tracks, each as distinct as the last. Sonically, there is
no waste, no fuss, with more authoritative melodies than the band has ever crafted before. This is a
new beginning, and each of the band feels it just as keenly as their listeners will.
Front and centre of The Clearing is Rowsell’s ever-evolving poetic storytelling alongside an innate desire
for Ellie, Joff, Theo and Joel to have fun, secure in their ambition and ability at this unique moment in
time. The Clearing encapsulates that freeing feeling of finding a moment of peace and clarity, having
survived the freewheeling frivolity of your 20s to emerge into your future, and is a portrait of Wolf Alice
standing on the precipice of a new decade in both life and art.
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Main image by Rachel Fleminger Hudson.
