I must be a narcissist - God knows that I can't resist to make a song and dance of it

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

29/08/25 : The Clearing - Wolf Alice 

Our third album visit (along with one festival visit) with Wolf Alice and I'm no closer to knowing what your typical Wolf Alice sound is or whether I like it - I very much doubt this will clear up the mystery.

Nope - if anything, the mystery deepens. I actually quite liked the album but it has a 70s Fleetwood Mac/Carly Simon pop/rock kinda sound which I really wasn't expecting. I'm not sure what else to say - I suspect it would benefit from further listens but that just ain't gonna happen. I am intrigued as to whether it gains or loses them fans though (but I've no idea how I'd find that out!).

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are The Deftones (another new entry), Laufey (ditto), Oasis and Alex Warren (he's doing very well) - and we've got quite the selection of (often badly spelled) new entries again this week.

Deftones (#2)
I don't think I've ever listened to a Deftones album (and this is their fourth top ten album, so I've done well to avoid them). Ooooh no - too noisy for my sensitive ears. Next

Laufey (#3)
I've no idea who or what Laufey is and the name isn't giving any clues. And neither, to be honest, is the music - it sounds like some obscure jazz 78s that you found in your granny's attic and you're not sure if they were supposed to sound that way or they've been warped over time. Wikipedia tells me she's Icelandic/Chinese, studied at the Berklee College of Music and her previous album won a Grammy.

Kingfsher (#7)
No idea from the name here either, but the music is a lot easier to classify - it's Oirish folk. I liked the album to start with but it did get a bit same-y as time went on.

Pendulum (#8)
I know this lot because we've had two previous visits - it's heavy-ish drum'n'bass and well done if you're in the mood for such a thing. Which I rarely am.

Sombr (#10)
Another misspelled name who I've never heard of - and this one isn't the easiest to classify either. Indie singer-songwriter-ish? I didn't hate it but I also didn't engage with it.

Royel Otis (#15)
The last unknown spelling mistake of the week - and I didn't mind this at all. It's kinda 80s sounding indie-pop which you don't hear a lot of these days (unless you're looking for it) - I doubt I'll be back, but it's certainly one of the better albums of the week. 

Stray Kids (#22)
I always get Stray Kids confused with The Stray Cats, but once I remembered they were those cheeky K-popsters, it was exactly the weird noises I expected.

Rudimental (#31)
I don't mind a bit of Rudimental and this sounded exactly like I was expecting it to - but it does feel like there are probably enough Rudimental albums out there now and I'd have no way of ranking them to let you know how this compares. But if you're a fan, then I guess you'll like it.

Oasis (#39)
All their albums in one place - oh joy. And it's £300 for the vinyl collection!!

The Who (#40)
A live album from '71 - I'm sure it's fine if you live such things, but I struggle to imagine it's all that different from their '70 live album (and have no intention of confirming it one way or the other).

John Fogerty (#84)
This is a peculiar one - he's basically re-recorded a load of Creedence Clearwater Revival tracks and (from a position of very limited knowledge) made them either exactly the same or worse. So I've no idea what the point to it is. 

We have some peculiar re-entries this week - Tyler, The Creator (#32 - first charted in '15, so I guess an anniversary version is responsible), Jennie (#72 - first charted in March) and Olivia Dean (#86 - first charted in '23, but she announced a tour this week). Last week I completely forgot to guess where Tom Grennan would be this week, but that doesn't matter because I'd never have guessed #88. I think Wolf Alice will do better than that, so I'm going for #47 and this week's Taylor stats are one in the top forty and seven in the entire chart.

Wikipedia tells us this is their fourth album and notes the 70s influences but also claims it is  "rooted firmly in the present", conveying "the freeing feeling of finding a moment of peace and clarity" - so hopefully that's cleared that up. Critically, the album was well received except by The Financial Times - a) why on earth would they bother reviewing albums and b) who would bother reading them? Commercially, it's done OK making the top twenty in quite a few European countries, including #8 in Ireland.

Unusually, there are no copies available on discogs.com but you can get a very fetching green vinyl version from the band's website for a mere £31. I'm afraid I found the whole thing a bit discombobulating though and Wolf Alice remain an enigma to me - my album of the week (out of a most peculiar bunch) is Royel Otis, although the Kingfsher one is also done well. To be honest, you're better off listening to any of last week's recommendations, but just don't make me listen to all the Oasis albums...

22/08/25 - Pretty forgettable