Wolf Alice's Ellie Rowsell used the band's second Best British Group win at the 2026 BRIT Awards — beating Pulp, Wet Leg, and Sleep Token in the process — to talk about something other than the album: 30 independent UK venues closed in the past year alone, by her count, taking 6,000 jobs with them.
The Clearing, the album behind that win, landed a five-star review on release and made NME's list of 2025's 50 best albums, following Visions of a Life, the record that won them the Mercury Prize years earlier — a band using its biggest industry moments to point back at the small venues that made it possible in the first place.