The Wet Leg duo from the Isle of Wight return with their sophomore album, moisturizer, this time members of their touring band officially join as band members and songwriters. This includes the excellent rhythm section of bassist Ellis Durand and Henry Holmes on drums. They add a low end groove to tracks like single “Davina McCall” named after the popular English TV presenter.
Lyrically, Wet Leg are all about love, a theme that appears again and again. Singer Rhian Teasdale sings it implicitly on second single “CPR” – “I’m in love and you’re to blame”. That appears again on the upbeat “liquidize” on the very first line, “love struck me down”. Moving away from that theme, “Catch Fists” instead threatens males who try to come into the woman’s space when out with her friends. Guitarist Hester Chambers takes over vocals on two of the tracks, it sees her vocals buried slightly in the mix on “Don’t Speak” that also adds some My Bloody Valentine like guitars.
moisuturizer sees the Teasdale/Hester duo move a bit away from their quirky debut that gained them much notoriety and shot to #1 on the UK charts. Many of the songs here are just solid indie rock songs that are played with a bit of style and lots of attitude thrown in. “Jennifer’s Body” is a straight-ahead rocker that compares love to riding on the second level of the double deck bus. It’s a solid album from the band that saw them take the #1 album slot in the UK while the rest of the country was at the Oasis gigs.
8/10
The Light Appears 