Wolf Alice @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 7 Dec

The Clearing is the name of Wolf Alice’s radiant fourth studio album, and as we enter the Hydro on a rainy Sunday evening, it feels like entering a clearing of our own – a wide open space, quickly filling up with the murmur of anticipation, wet raincoats long forgotten about as we get ready to see what Wolf Alice have in store for us.

Warmed up by the two North American support acts – Canadian Bria Salmena and Sunflower Bean straight from New York City – Wolf Alice deliver us a hint of Americana and careful Old Hollywood elegance. The stage design, an understated but effective arrangement of star-shaped tinsel and a disco ball, excitedly welcomes the band as they take the stage. Joined by touring member Ryan Malcolm on keys, their sound has clearly evolved – as has the band. While classics like Silk and Yuk Foo get the crowd going, the new songs reflect a level of vulnerability and emotion that the band has become known for, as well as a new maturity that comes through with more jazzy influences.

The music is hard and soft at the same time, angry as well as anxious, loving as well as ecstatic. Carried by frontwoman Ellie Rowsell’s crystal clear vocals, the band’s evolution is apparent in every note. She mentions the duality that seems an underlying theme to their sound: “Sometimes I like a chamomile tea, and sometimes I like Buckfast,” she states when preparing to play recent single The Sofa. There is clearly an element of connection between the band and the audience – not just in their astute lyricism, but in their common history as well.

Image: Wolf Alice @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 7 Dec by Serena Milesi

While this is Wolf Alice’s first Scottish arena tour, as bassist Theo Ellis remarks – “We were playing King Tut's just about ten minutes ago!” – this audience is anything but new. When the band mention how much they love playing in Scotland, there's an authenticity to the statement that many touring artists lack. At one point, an old video of the four band members, one wearing a kilt, is shown on the screen. There's a sentimentality not just to their music but to their relationship with the city and the crowd – a sentimentality that seems to lend them more credibility, more strength, rather than take away from it.

Phone torches during the slower songs seem to blend in with the sparkle of the mirror ball, and the audience becomes a part of the spectacle, of the shared experience. Between Safe from Heartbreak (If You Never Fall in Love) and encore Don’t Delete the Kisses, Wolf Alice give us a stark reminder that true beauty can be found, more than anywhere else, within vulnerability and raw emotion.