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Wolf Alice
Wolf Alice credit Rachel Fleminger Hudson
ReviewsTrack Reviews

On ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, Wolf Alice are bolder and more brilliant than ever

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Supremely confident and expressive, so electrifying it’ll give you goosebumps: the first taste of the British band’s fourth album ‘The Clearing’ has it all

5
By Rhian Daly

Wolf Alice have never been a band content with complacency. Each time they’ve kickstarted a new chapter in the decade since the release of their debut album ‘My Love Is Cool’, it’s felt as if they’re returning as an elevated version of themselves. The core of the four-piece is still the same, but bolstered by new ideas, fresh levels of confidence and bigger, bolder ambitions. Their Mercury Prize-winning second album ‘Visions Of A Life’ blanketed their sharp indie with shoegazey fuzz, while 2022’s ‘Blue Weekend’ added new cinematic layers and experimentation to their sound.

That now-expected musical glow-up is in full force again now as they prepare to return with their eagerly anticipated, Greg Kurstin-produced fourth album, ‘The Clearing’. ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, the first taste of that record, is utterly electrifying – the kind of song that’s so thrillingly larger-than-life in both sound and ambition that it gives you goosebumps. This is an outsized, attention-commanding statement of intent from a band not holding back.

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We’ve heard Wolf Alice go full-pelt into rock bangers before, but ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ takes a different tack compared to the sludgy ‘Visions Of A Life’ or the brittle, breakneck punk of ‘Play The Greatest Hits’. Here, they pull from the ’70s palette of russet and harvest gold-hued sounds – warm and rich, even when Ellie Rowsell is giving us her raspiest yell over the top. It’s splashy and full of little flourishes: Joff Oddie’s twiddling guitar solo, a brief drum splatter from Joel Amey, Theo Ellis’ bassline that pierces through the pre-chorus.

Rowsell, meanwhile, has never sounded more incredible, pushing her vocals to their most beautiful one moment, then contorting them and twisting them the next. Each syllable is packed with emotion and expression; nothing wasted, every utterance taking you deeper into the heart of the song. When she sings “Fucking baby, baby man” in the first verse, she sings “Fuck” as if through an enormous exasperated sigh before slipping straight back into a tremulous falsetto. Later, when she first tells us she’s “so sick and tired of trying to play it hard”, she expertly makes all-consuming frustration sound divine.

‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ is a fitting song for Wolf Alice to return with. It speaks to coming into your own, rising up through the chaos of life and emerging completely sure of yourself. “But I bloom, baby bloom / Watch me and you’ll see just what I’m worth,” Rowsell declares, serenely self-assured. “Yes, I bloom, baby bloom / Every flower needs to neighbour with the dirt.” After three albums of building and expanding their world, and experiencing the ups and downs of the music industry, it feels like the band are ready to stake their claim as one of their generation’s most important acts. Now, Wolf Alice are undoubtedly in full bloom.

Wolf Alice’s ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ is out now. ‘The Clearing’ is out on August 29 via Sony

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