Wolf Alice

Highbury, 2010

Wolf Alice began in London in 2010 as an acoustic duo: Ellie Rowsell singing, Joff Oddie on guitar. The name came from an Angela Carter short story, and the first billed performance was in December 2010 at the Garage in Highbury. The rhythm section took two years to settle. Sadie Cleary played bass until 2012; drummer James DC left the same year after a wrist injury. Joel Amey came in on drums in 2012 and Theo Ellis on bass later that year, and that four-piece has held ever since.

Early singles went out through Chess Club before the band signed to Dirty Hit in 2014, the year they were named best breakthrough artist at the UK Festival Awards. The reputation that formed around them in that period was built on gigs rather than on records: by 2016 the NME Awards had given them best live band, and they had a Grammy nomination for best rock performance for 'Moaning Lisa Smile'.

Four albums, two number ones

The debut, My Love Is Cool, arrived in 2015 and went in at number two on the UK albums chart, with a Mercury Prize nomination following. Visions of a Life, released in 2017, also reached number two and then won the Mercury Prize in 2018. Blue Weekend, in 2021, was the first to go to number one, and drew a third Mercury nomination.

The pattern across those three records is a band widening rather than narrowing: grunge-weight guitars and a whisper-to-scream vocal on the first, a sprawl on the second, a tighter and more cinematic set of songs on the third. By the time Blue Weekend had finished its run, Wolf Alice had moved from club stages to arena support slots, including a spell opening for Harry Styles.

In February 2024 the band ended a three-album deal with Dirty Hit and signed to Columbia and RCA. Theo Ellis has described the split as amicable and the move as a question of reach: it feels, he said, like the music can be pushed globally more than it ever has been.

'The Clearing' and the Kurstin sessions

The Clearing came out on 22 August 2025, recorded over roughly three months at No Expectations studio in Los Angeles with Greg Kurstin producing. The band have pushed back on the idea that hiring a pop producer meant chasing pop: Rowsell has pointed to his range, Amey to the fact he played in a punk band and worked as a jazz musician, and Oddie has called him a facilitator who coaches a song towards where it wants to go.

The record swaps the heavier end of the catalogue for piano, finger-picked guitar and a folk and Americana tilt, with Fleetwood Mac audible in the layered vocals. 'Bloom Baby Bloom' led on 15 May 2025, followed by 'The Sofa' on 11 July, 'White Horses' on 8 August and 'Just Two Girls' on 9 September. 'White Horses' gave Amey his first lead vocal since the debut.

It debuted at number one in the UK with 30,136 album-equivalent units, the band's second consecutive chart-topper, and simultaneously topped the official vinyl chart and the Scottish chart. It reached the top ten in Ireland, Austria and Germany, the top twenty on the ARIA chart in Australia, and has been certified silver in the UK. Metacritic settled at 80; NME and DIY both gave five stars, while some reviewers found the second half drifting towards acoustic sameness. A fourth Mercury nomination followed in September 2025.

Where they stand in October 2026

At the BRIT Awards on 28 February 2026, held at Co-op Live in Manchester, Wolf Alice won British Group ahead of The Last Dinner Party, Pulp, Sleep Token and Wet Leg — their second win in the category after 2022 — and were also nominated for British album of the year. They performed 'The Sofa' on the night. Rowsell used the acceptance speech to talk about grassroots venues, citing thirty independent venue closures in the previous year, 6,000 jobs lost and more than half of small venues reporting no profit, and thanking those who keep fighting to keep the doors open.

That argument is one the band return to in interviews. Rowsell has pointed out how expensive touring has become and how little the public sees of how the money is split; Ellis has warned that an environment of rising costs ends up admitting only people who can afford to absorb them.

On 21 August 2026 they released The Clearing: B Sides, trailed by 'Gospel Oak' and including a cover of The Roches' 'Hammond Song' recorded during the Los Angeles sessions, with Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean and Bria Salmena on vocals. The band also appeared on the UK edition of Saturday Night Live in March 2026.

The touring year has been near-continuous: Laneway in Australia and New Zealand in February, Mexico and Brazil in May, including C6 Fest in São Paulo on 23 May, then a European and British summer that took in the Eden Sessions on 16 June, Rock Werchter on 3 July, NOS Alive on 10 July and Newcastle's Exhibition Park on 12 July. Since 25 September they have been opening Olivia Rodrigo's Unraveled Tour, which began in Hartford, Connecticut; they also played All Things Go in Columbia, Maryland on 12 October. Ellis is absent for most of those dates — he and his partner are having a baby — and Cumming has stepped in on bass for the month of October, saying she was honoured to be asked. Devon Again takes over the support slot from November.

The Finsbury Park benchmark

The show that currently defines the band's headline standing was on 5 July 2026 at Finsbury Park, a few miles from where the band started and their largest headline gig to date. The bill underneath them read Keo, Florence Road, Rachel Chinouriri, Lykke Li and The Last Dinner Party.

Reviewers treated it as a career summary rather than an album launch. Dork called it a show that felt like an invitation to start a band; NME wrote them up as among the very best around. Between songs, Rowsell told the crowd that if they had a crush they should probably say so, and that if they wanted to start a band they should probably start one.

What's booked next

After the Rodrigo dates end in Columbus on 30 October, the next confirmed headline run is Australia in December 2026 — the first standalone Australian tour since The Clearing. Frontier Touring has them at Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane on 2 December, the Sydney Opera House Forecourt on 4 December, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne on 5 December, Hindley Street Music Hall in Adelaide on 6 December and the Ice Cream Factory in Perth on 8 December, with Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth over-18s and the two outdoor shows all ages. Those tickets went to Frontier members on 9 February 2026 and to general sale on 11 February.

The practical reading of the diary is that the band are currently running two different shows in parallel: a tight half-hour-ish arena support set aimed at an audience that may only know the singles, and a long career-spanning headline production they bring out for their own billings. The Australian dates are the next chance to see the second one.