Dry Cleaning are so bored with the way this life has become, and yet, are all so scintillating to put it into sonic wavelength and lyrical form on their third and sturdiest album to date, Secret Love.

It’s truly admiring to bare witness to, considering the South London post-punk band’s previous efforts in their 2021 breakthrough debut, New Long Leg, and its quick-following sophomore descendent, 2022’s Stumpwork, came about in the throes of the pandemic era where everything in life had already seemingly sucked all of the energy out of any emotion, making Florence Shaw’s deadpanning wit the perfect anecdote to compliment it all.

She remains sharper than ever on the tongue in spite of the world slowly spiraling down through her own repetitive self-care rituals (see: “Evil Evil Idiot”) and her daydreaming to be as ignorance is blissed as a cruise ship designer (“Cruise Ship Designer”), hidden messages to the outside world (“Secret Love [Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy]”,) a social avoidant (“Blood”), and various stream of conscious fragments that add up to an exhaustive indifference toward the greater part of this world that is apathetically indifferent (“Let Me Grow and You’ll See The Fruit”, “I Need You”.)

That sharpness is matched in the electric concentration of guitarist and synthesist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, and drummer Nick Buxton who work altogether toward a more melodic synchrony to churn through Shaw’s brain spells with an added pop to her zingers. Accentuated by the vivid abstraction of Cate Le Bon’s production details, these finer features find a small miracle way in expanding Dry Cleaning’s sound beyond loathing horror and destruction into what can be considered their own slant on “Joy”.

Highlights: “Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy”), “Let Me Grow And You’ll See The Fruit”, “Joy”

Dry Cleaning’s Secret Love is available now on 4AD.

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