Album Review: Wet Leg - 'Wet Leg'

Wet Leg erupts rather than opens with the killer lines: “I need to lie down, only just got up/ I feel so uninspired, I feel like giving up/ I feel like someone has just punched me in the guts/ I kind of like it cause it feels like being in love.” Nihilism hasn’t sounded this much fun since Nirvana’s ‘About A Girl’.

Lyrical flourishes flash across the record – from forbidding fetish on mammoth debut single, ‘Chaise Longue’ (“Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?”); through the wicked belittlement of ‘Wet Dream’ (“You climb onto the bonnet and you’re licking the windscreen”); to the odious vice of ‘Ur Mum’ (“When you’re getting in place for the mayonnaise/ yeah you know it’s time to go”).

The buzz circling Wet Leg’s debut is reminiscent of the delirium surrounding Domino labelmates Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Invading the UK from across the Solent, the Isle of Wight duo – Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers to their mums – are possessed of a provocative, piercing, idiosyncratic bent which ensures that they are not part of any genre or style other than their own. 

Which is? Mix a Throwing Muses flavour, the mischief of Pixies, a droll Pavement-style delivery and a Minutemen-type precision for a start. And, what the hell – throw in elements of the lo-fi energy of the Modern Lovers; the wry observation of Self Esteem; the dance-rock of CSS; a Viagra Boys scuzz; a Buffalo Springfield dreamscape (check ‘Loving You’); and a Ronson-cast riff (‘I Don’t Want To Go Out’) – and you’re nearly there. 

Watching Wet Leg across over 50 live dates is going to be one hell of a party. The fact that most are already sold-out, begs the question asked on ‘Wet Dream’: “What makes you think you’re good enough/ to think about me when you’re touching yourself?’

Wet Leg are great. They really are.

Listen: 'Being In Love’
Score: 9/10

Listen to Wet Leg below, out now via Domino Records:

Revisit Wet Leg's 2022 interview with Hot Press here.