Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- In their debut album London band Dry Cleaning take inspiration from the post-punk of the past and present to deliver New Long Leg, a record as in-the-moment as their DIY roots would lead you to expect. Their debut sees them working with producer John Parish, a perfect collaboration to fit their angsty, yet breezy charm.

The Dry Cleaning name is taken from that meaningless errand but achieves the same urgency as the phrase Fetch the Bolt Cutters, when underwritten by their witty observance of the mundane in their lyrics. Though on first listen you may find their penchant for abruptness well… abrupt, their wry, British dryness elevates their music.

Unsmart Lady, a smirk of a song, opens with the lyrics “Don’t cry, just drive.” Good advice to be sure, but paired with light, psychedelic guitars and Parish’s production, the track resembles the work of Chicago band Dehd and the jangly art-pop of Reward by Cate Le Bon. Unsmart Lady feels like a karaoke song, disrupted by conversation as suddenly Dry Cleaning’s frontwoman Florence Shaw calls out, “What’ve you been up to? Cool… Yeah…” It’d be ridiculous if it weren’t so fantastic.

Shaw strikes out at Antiques Roadshow in the track John Wick, where she criticises its ponderous pace, offhandedly singing her way through what’s on TV and in her horoscope, fittingly tied together with the opening line, “No, that’s not true.” Sometimes Shaw’s spoken word pace is so far detached from singing that her humming a melody on the title track is almost jarring. Songs like these, with their playful, barbed-wire attitude come across like a a less dancey, less depressed Joy Division.

On the record’s powerful closer Every Day Carry, Dry Cleaning disarm their harsh words with a three minute long, dissonant, instrumental segue that delivers the same harshness as their buzzing guitars. It’s not until the last thirty seconds of the album that Shaw delivers what may be the most important words on it: “I just want to put something positive into the world, but it’s hard because I’m so full of poisonous rage.” After an album of intricate and addictive absurdities, it packs a refreshingly different kind of punch, like Dry Cleaning are finally blurting out what’s been on their mind.

The more spontaneous and straightforward an album sounds, the more choreographed and relentlessly edited it likely is. In the case of New Long Leg, Dry Cleaning transform their mundane, daily routines into something fascinating, surreal, and sharp.

- Sean Tayler.