Day 48: Wet Leg – moisturizer

Album cover courtesy of Domino Recording Company

Shorter one as I’ve been out and about today, including watching an old film scored live with an organ, which is about as fun of a time you can have without taking your clothes off. I didn’t have the spare time today to sit down to listen to something properly, so I put on a little bit of Wet Leg on in the car. I’d heard some of their songs here and there, and I thought they sounded alright. A few songs from their newer album sounded a bit more memorable, so I thought I’d finally give them a proper whack.

Released last summer, Moisturizer is Wet Leg’s second album after the massive success of their eponymous debut album. They released their first single and were suddenly absolutely everywhere, winning Best Alternative Music Album and Best Alternative Music Performance at the Grammy’s and Best New Artist and Best British Group at the Brits. Because of this, they were swiftly accused online of being industry plants and nepo babies – they’re not, it turns out their album was just well liked. Almost as good as when Lola Young got called a nepo baby because her great aunt wrote The Gruffalo.

Turns out I like Wet Leg, at least a little bit. Based on the singles I’ve heard from the first album – arguably not much to go on – it feels like they’ve come into their own on this one. I thought based on singles like “Chaise Longue”, they were pretty good but maybe they just weren’t that interesting. There’s plenty of interesting songs on this album, though. There’s something so pleasing about their melodies and riffs, it’s a joy to listen to. A few of the songs sort of fade into the background while driving (especially at the end) but there are a few songs on there that are genuinely good, “liquidize” being one of them.

It’s one of those bands where I like them, it’s a decent album, but listening to it I can just smell that one day they’ll make something very, very good. 7/10.