![\"Wolf](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Wolf-Alice-2025-Bloom-Baby-Bloom-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Wolf Alice)<\/p>\n
Thu 28 August 2025 6:00, UK <\/p>\n
There were two things Wolf Alice<\/a>\u2019s Ellie Rowsell was starkly aware of going into the new record. One, that they reached a level of maturity most indie bands never reach. And two, that she no longer wished to hide her rockstar antics behind a guitar.<\/p>\n Wolf Alice have the kind of successes most bands their age can only dream of. Multiple awards, countless endorsements and billing alongside some of the biggest names in the current festival cycle, to name a few. But at the same time, they\u2019re also behind in some ways. And one of those is because of their latest transition into maturing.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Rowsell, this came with the realisation she wasn\u2019t 19 anymore. When Wolf Alice first hit the scene, it was with the same bands that haven\u2019t really gotten anywhere since. Or ones who haven\u2019t grown the way Wolf Alice has over the years. Like Circa Waves, Alt-J, Catfish and the Bottlemen. They still did well for themselves, but not the way they probably wanted at the time. Not in the Wolf Alice way, where they\u2019re still talked about in most corners today.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not to say Wolf Alice had it easy. They hit their rough patches too. What\u2019s mattered is how they\u2019ve taken those knocks head-on, never shied away \u2013 and that\u2019s what\u2019s carried them to where they are now. Take Rowsell, for example. She might not have realised it at the time, but she was figuring out how to navigate being a woman fronting an indie band.<\/p>\n And part of that came with using her guitar as something to hide behind, something as a distraction that didn\u2019t come with a hot spotlight solely on her. She was the face of the band, as she is now. But back then, it\u2019s almost like she could only give away pieces of herself at a time, and not lean into the rockstar visage she\u2019d eventually embrace wholeheartedly in her 30s.<\/p>\n This is precisely what we see with the jump from earlier sets to \u2018Bloom Baby Bloom\u2019. A song literally about the prospect of blooming into your true self, Rowesell channelled Axl Rose and other rock powerhouses in reaching a new level of performance art. \u201cI\u2019ve used the guitar as a shield in the past, playing it has perhaps been some way to reject the \u2018girl singer in band\u2019 trope, but I wanted to focus on my voice as a rock instrument so it\u2019s been freeing to put the guitar down and reach a point where I don\u2019t feel like I need to prove that I\u2019m a musician,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Though framed as two different things, this came hand-in-hand with growing older, maturing. And while scary, especially when it comes to women in the industry, growing older and embracing it \u2013 navigating it when it feels like the worst thing in the world \u2013 is precisely why Wolf Alice are still around today. And why many other indie bands are not. The Clearing wasn\u2019t just Rowsell hitting the studio like some kind of reborn rock operatic. It was her thinking, not for the first time, about how her reputation impacts her art<\/a>. Or more specifically, how the expectations of others make her both a contradiction of and an adherence to the modern musical landscape.<\/p>\n In \u2018Play It Out\u2019, Rowsell pours in some lines that would put a shiver into even the coldest of hearts. It\u2019s poetic genius, the way she talks about being a woman with such lyrical finesse, saying things like, \u201cWhen my body can no longer make a mother of me,\u201d and \u201cRock the cradle with a babeless hand\u201d, and \u201cJust watch me build castles in the hourglass sand. Might still hear screaming in the hallway from the empty pram.\u201d<\/p>\n All of this probably points to why they chose such a liminal-sounding album title, with the clearing being somewhere between everywhere and nowhere. The place where Rowsell can spotlight her insecurities and make great out of it because it\u2019s so honest. And this stretches to other parts of the band, too. Because even as Joel Amey takes the lead on \u2018White Horses\u2019, he still uses his own life and experience to drive their narrative, taking Wolf Alice somewhere they\u2019ve never been before. Somewhere uncertain, but all the better for it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Wolf Alice) Thu 28 August 2025 6:00, UK There were two things Wolf Alice\u2019s Ellie Rowsell was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[48287,96,596,128,56,54,55,46090],"class_list":{"0":"post-98384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ellie-rowsell","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-homepage","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom","15":"tag-wolf-alice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Wolf](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Wolf-Alice-2025-Rachel-Fleminger-Hudson-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Wolf Alice pose for new album artwork. (Credits: Rachel Fleminger Hudson)<\/p>\n