Like many, I was thrilled by the overnight emergence of this band in 2021.\u00a0 They had zero on-ramp: no teasers, no captivating social media presence, no backers.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Suddenly, they hit us with \u201cChaise Longue\u201d and \u201cWet Dream.\u201d\u00a0 Nobody had heard of them, this band from the Isle of Wight (like, where?) that seemed a combination of grrrl power (but even funnier), Lou Reed talk-singing (but in a good way), jangle-angle guitars (with melody), and meta-commentary (without pedanticism) that sent much of the indie scene into a kind of frenzy.\u00a0\u00a0 Let alone the complete takedown of everything that anybody else thought about gender relationships.\u00a0 With but the two songs from my feed, I bought a ticket for their first appearance in San Francisco at the Rickshaw in December 2021.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
And. I. Was. Enthralled.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Wet Leg played a roughly one-hour set; it\u2019s all the music they had.\u00a0 Lead singer\/guitarist Rhian Teasdale was charismatic, and geeky, and humble, clearly overwhelmed by the fact that we all knew the words.\u00a0 Many of us brought props to deploy, like it was Rocky Horror Picture Show.\u00a0 Guitarist Hester Chambers was enigmatic and mystical in her refusal to do anything but fade into the background (she has pretty bad social anxiety). \u00a0\u00a0Ellis Durand (bass) and Henry Holmes (drums) drove the performance exactly as I imagined they would; I was stoked that they seemed to enjoy Teasdale as the front person as much as the rest of us.\u00a0 Joshua Mobaraki (guitar, synth) turned out to be a key component of the overall sound, which surprised me.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The set was spectacular. The band, clearly thrilled being together on stage, engaged in impromptu interactions, laughed at their own flubs, comically learning how to play IRL to adoring fans in a city in which they assumed they were complete unknowns. The set navigated tremendously fraught barricades about gender, politics, on-line life, and IRL with humor, precision, and a clear determination that those lines can be temporarily erased in a one-hour community.\u00a0 I left feeling sooooo much better about bro culture (we can stop it!), anti-feminism (we can stop it!), social media toxicity (we can\u2019t stop it), the state of the US (we can\u2019t stop it alone), and my fear of the end of human relationships (oh wait\u2026.the set didn\u2019t help my fears of that).\u00a0 The next day I txted all my fellow music nerdz that when Wet Leg\u2019s full-length came out in April 2022, it was going to change our lives.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Welp\u2026. like most of my musical predictions, I was wrong. Wet Leg\u2019s self-titled first release didn\u2019t change my life. In fact, apart from a handful of gems, it is as inconsistent as the band\u2019s critique of modern life as a twenty something.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
When Durand and Holmes are allowed to drive a song, they are thrilling. When Chambers\u2019 arpeggiated guitar licks are allowed to lead a song, we\u2019re in good territory. When Teasdale sticks to her strengths, it\u2019s very good indie-pop-post-punk, with a strong nod to the \u201990s.\u00a0 When the biting witticism of their lyrics is a central feature, Wet Leg shimmers.\u00a0 \u00a0Unfortunately, the band tries too many other musical approaches on this self-released debut, angles that don\u2019t suit them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The album opens with \u201cBeing In Love,\u201d which starts our trip by foregrounding the vibe of much of the album, lyrically:\u00a0 la la la la la, I don\u2019t know what love is, I only know that is \u201cfeels like being in love.\u201d It\u2019s an important theme of the album. There\u2019s something utterly not right in the world because we only \u201cfeel like\u201d rather than \u201cknow.\u201d There\u2019s something that should be emotionally real, but we only feel distance from any of that.\u00a0 It\u2019s an acute observation, which will be revisited throughout the album, but the song is plodding and weirdly musically uninteresting. Can we possibly combine lassitude and distancing that is more interesting than this?\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yeah, of course we can.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The monster indie-hit \u201cChaise Longue\u201d follows. The first few bars are so infectious they need a vaccine. The song is nothing without the bass\/drum underpinning which is simple and plain. When Wet Leg gets away from that, in this album, it never works. And the lyrics\u2014filled with double entendres, and non-hateful pokes at all sorts of powers-that-be\u2014is where the band is best:<\/p>\n
Mummy, daddy, look at me
I went to school and I got a degree
All my friends call it \u2018the big D\u2019
I went to school and I got the big D
I got the big D<\/i><\/p>\n
Is your muffin buttered?
Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?
Excuse me (what?)
Excuse me (what?)
Hey you, over there
On the chaise longue in your underwear
What are you doing sitting down?
You should be horizontal now<\/i><\/p>\n
As Teasdale sings these lyrics, no listener believes she is being entirely truthful. But isn\u2019t that everything we do these days? Isn\u2019t irony and distancing from what we\u2019re really wanting to feel and say the whole point?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
In \u201cAngelica,\u201d the band reaches out into a broader and lusher production, bringing in synths, both crunching and overlayed jangly guitars, tempo changes that fit well with both lyrics and tonal modulations, and some wonderful take downs of social convention and relationship-building in the Instagram age:\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Angelica, she brought lasagna to the party
I tried my luck at dancing with everybody
Sometimes life gets hard to deal
I like you, you’ve got sex appeal<\/i><\/p>\n
But I don’t wanna follow you on the ‘gram
I don’t wanna listen to your band
I don’t know why I haven’t left yet
Don’t want none of this<\/i><\/p>\n
This is (some of) us. I wanna be like Angelica, I want to be the lasagna person, but if I have to do the \u2019gram\u2026 the song suggests that both Angelica and the singer are pretty messed up to want any of it in the first place.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cI Don\u2019t Wanna Go Out\u201d is the second of unfortunately too many throwaway songs on the album, with the lines:\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It used to be so fun
Now everything just feels dumb
I wish I could care
And now I’m almost 28, still getting off my stupid face
A fucking nightmare, I know I should care
Right now, I don\u2019t care<\/i><\/p>\n
It underscores the lyrical tension in this release, however, between \u201clet\u2019s have serious fun\u201d and \u201clet\u2019s have semi-serious fun,\u201d \u00a0and \u201cI just don\u2019t know what fun even means.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWet Dream\u201d is one of the only songs we will remember from this album 10 years from now. Bass and drum infection? Check. Sardonic distancing between wanting true connection and current gendered relationships in the porn age? Check. Teasdale at her sing-song best, checking her own beliefs? Check.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I was in your wet dream
Driving in my car
What makes you think you\u2019re good enough
To think about me when you\u2019re touching yourself?
Touching yourself
Touching your, touching yourself
Touching yourself<\/i><\/p>\n
You climb onto the bonnet
And you\u2019re licking the windscreen
I\u2019ve never seen anything so obscene
It\u2019s enough to make a girl blush
It\u2019s enough, it\u2019s enough to make a girl blush<\/i><\/p>\n
At Wet Dream\u2019s best, lyrically, we ask ourselves, \u201cwait\u2026 who\u2019s the narrator, who\u2019s the dreamer, who\u2019s the bystander, who\u2019s telling the story?\u201d We\u2019re never sure, when Wet Leg are at their best. And that is a very underrated attribute of this band: disturbance of the authorial voice, and here they are disturbing their own, while making a pop song meant for one glorious, listen-in-a-convertible-as-you-speed-down-a-rural-road moment.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In much of the rest of the album, Wet Leg isn\u2019t convincing. \u201cConvincing,\u201d Loving You,\u201d \u201cOh No,\u201d \u201cPiece Of Shit\u201d and \u201cSupermarket\u201d are as unremarkable musically and lyrically as any songs I\u2019ve ever heard. Yes, they can be different in context at a live performance, which they are, but they are unconvincing explorations that largely marginalize the band\u2019s strengths.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
In the last unremarkable half of this release, however, lurk two more intriguing songs, \u201cUr Mum\u201d and \u201cToo Late Now.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cUr Mum\u201d is the song they closed with in December 2021.\u00a0 I hate the mix of \u201cUr Mum\u201d that I have available to me from 2022. It\u2019s flat. It\u2019s not just that a live version is better, it\u2019s that the band and engineers didn\u2019t realize how it should be put into digital format. Wet Leg saved this song for the end of their set, with Teasdale saying: \u201cThere\u2019s not going to be an encore. After this song, my voice is shite.\u201d The song, in live time, said, \u201cwe\u2019ve all been kind, we\u2019ve all been sardonic and cutting, we all know that we don\u2019t know how to navigate IRL and that other thing, we don\u2019t know how to navigate ironic distance and caring\u2026 so let\u2019s do this.\u00a0 And, ya know, maybe a gigantic scream at the top of our lungs, together, might be better than yoga, mindfulness, txting, \u2019gramming, ayahuasca, influencers\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 The scream from the audience, and the band, lasted more than two minutes. And you know? It was better than all those things that everybody tells me is good for myself.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
And, the last song, \u201cToo Late Now\u201d:<\/p>\n
Now everything is going wrong
I think I changed my mind again
I\u2019m not sure if this is a song
I don’t even know what I’m saying
Everything is going wrong
I think I changed my mind again
I’m not sure if this is the kinda life that I saw my self living<\/i><\/p>\n
I don’t need no dating app
To tell me if I look like crap
To tell me if I’m thin or fat
To tell me, should I shave my rat
I don’t need no radio, no MTV, no BBC
I just need a bubble bath to send me on a higher path<\/i><\/p>\n
I\u2019m gonna drive my car into the sea
I\u2019m gonna drive downtown looking pretty ordinary
Too late now, lost track somehow
I’m like, \u201cOh my God, this road is pretty harrowing\u201d
Down we go while holding hands
If I fuck this up, I\u2019m taking you down with me
Too late now, lost track somehow
Well, if I fuck this up, I\u2019m taking you down with me<\/i><\/p>\n
After being entirely underwhelmed by this release\u2026.the last song. Which raised my hopes for their next album. Here, the band brings together everything they have been fiddling with on this release. Bass and drums in the foreground. A beautiful guitar track (if you like any guitar riff on this album, Chambers is responsible for it). Making synths work within the wider musical and lyrical intent. Giving Teasdale an opportunity to do a Kae Tempest-like rap lyric. Looking back at the album and declaring there\u2019s some gold there, there\u2019s some shite there, and here\u2019s our plan for the future.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The album is inconsistent, searching in a way that won\u2019t serve it in the long term. \u00a0\u00a0Yet\u2026that last song left me wondering:\u00a0 I\u2019m underwhelmed and captivated at the same time.\u00a0 What\u2019s next?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
It took them three years to deliver their second album\u2014which I\u2019ll cover in a companion review.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":35320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[11099],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-47211","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-wet-leg","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47211"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47211"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}