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As premiered with an earlier Apple New Music Daily exclusive, WOLF ALICE have ramped up the excitement for the release of their much anticipated fourth album with new track White Horses.

White Horses is the only song on The Clearing to see drummer Joel Amey take on lead vocals before a harmonious duet with Ellie takes hold. What started as a demo born from lyrics committed to his Notes app during a rare car journey with his mum, aunt and sister, Joel returned to the verse towards the end of recording the album to expand on a theme. He then took the bones of the track to the band who together built it out to produce a song fitting with the overall sound and vision of The Clearing.

Joel explains: “I was inspired by the songs we had already that were becoming The Clearing – the sonic shapes we were creating, the big acoustics, the harmonies – but I wanted to underpin it with a driving krautrock beat.”

And the lyrics are about his family: “We’ve never really known where we came from in terms of heritage until recently. My mum and aunt were adopted, and for years it posed questions of identity and where our roots lay for all of us but, for me, they never seemed like answers I needed to find out.”

As he travelled the world with Wolf Alice throughout his 20s, his sense of home became vaguer: “I was on this big adventure with my best mates, never feeling the need to call one place home, living out of a suitcase, all the stuff that comes with being in a band. I felt that the answers to ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where do I come from?’ didn’t matter so much – I’d chosen my family, and they were the people around me.”

But, as with many things in life, as Joel got older there was a growing curiosity to get some answers on his background. The curiosity came with some excitement and some fear, but also the security that whatever he might find at the end of that journey, he would always be grateful for the people he already had standing by his side: “White Horses was me trying to put all that into a tune, and Ellie, Joff and Theo all helped me along the way.”

Musically it takes more influence from trippy dance music melded with the signature 70s rock of the rest of the album. It has an expansive overtone that holds endless possibilities, going off on wonderful tangents that build to the crescendo. Bursting with understated psychedelic power, the spirited lines profess: “Know who I am, that’s important to me / Do what I can to see the wood from the trees”. It’s simply euphoric.

White Horses follows on from the huge album singles ‘ Bloom Baby Bloom ’ and most recently, ‘ The Sofa’ which the band shared right after their glorious sunset performance on The Other Stage at Glastonbury; the cause of many a tear being shed in the field of dreams. Combining fan favourites such as Bros and Don’t Delete The Kisses with new songs Bloom Baby Bloom and The Sofa, the slot felt like a victory lap.

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 to create a truly timeless record.

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. In 2025, their fourth album 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, lead singer 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 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.

UK AND IRELAND TOUR DATES

NOVEMBER

Fri 28 MANCHESTER AO Arena

Sat 29 BIRMINGHAM Utilita Arena

DECEMBER

Mon 01 CARDIFF Utilita Arena

Tue 02 LONDON O2 Arena

Wed 03 LONDON O2 Arena

Fri 05 LEEDS First Direct Arena

Sun 07 GLASGOW OVO Hydro Arena

Mon 08 NOTTINGHAM Motorpoint Arena

Wed 10 DUBLIN 3 Arena