“I just wanna fight.” That’s not just a lyric — it’s a mission statement. Three years after conquering indie rock with wry deadpan and scrappy guitar riffs, Wet Leg return with Moisturizer, a second album that lands like a glittery, rage-fueled haymaker. Out July 11 via Domino, it’s leaner, louder, and unhinged in the best way — a delirious soundtrack for horny, messy nights and hungover mornings after.
If their debut reveled in slacker detachment, Moisturizer is charged with a strange new urgency. On opener “CPR,” the drums don’t just kick in — they pummel. Bassist Ellis Durand locks in a groove so tight it feels sweaty, claustrophobic. Over it all, Rhian Teasdale stammers through a lovesick panic attack before exploding into a desperate scream: “I’M IN LOVE.” It’s ridiculous and gutting all at once — a tonal tightrope Wet Leg walk with unnerving precision across all twelve tracks.
The evolution isn’t just emotional; it’s structural. Wet Leg isn’t a duo anymore. Teasdale and Hester Chambers have absorbed their touring band into the creative fold, and the results are all over this record. Josh Mobaraki’s synths and jagged guitar lines give the album its queasy pulse, while Dan Carey’s production — murky, muscular, occasionally unhinged — makes it feel like these songs are crawling out of your speakers to start ***. And they’re not alone: Alan Moulder, whose fingerprints are on everything from My Bloody Valentine to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, lends his mixing chops to push everything into glorious overload.
Lyrically, they’re still bratty, still blunt, but Moisturizer trades the smirking irony of “Chaise Longue” for something more visceral. “Catch These Fists” doesn’t flirt — it threatens. “Pillow Talk” oozes menace, its industrial throb underscoring Teasdale’s most explicit writing yet. And “Mangetout” might be the closest they’ve come to a club banger, a dance-punk fever dream where desire curdles into contempt. “You wanna *** me?” Teasdale purrs. “I know — most people do.”
But Moisturizer isn’t just all *** and vinegar. “Davina McCall” slows things down, disarming with oddball chord changes and delicate harmonies that *** at the edges. “11:21” is practically tender, evoking Weyes Blood-style melancholy, while “don’t speak” — a rare turn at lead vocals for Chambers — channels a sloppy, lovesick energy that wouldn’t feel out of place on a late-era Replacements record.
Tracklist
- CPR
- liquidize
- catch these fists
- davina mccall
- jennifer’s body
- mangetout
- pond song
- pokemon
- pillow talk
- don’t speak
- 11:21
- u and me at home
Across the record, there’s a newfound physicality — in the rhythms, in the lyrics, in the way the songs sound like they’re about to spill out of control. It’s music that wants to be played loud in a sticky basement, screamed by a crowd that’s half in love, half on the verge of a breakdown.
Is Moisturizer a reinvention? Not quite. It’s more like an eruption — a culmination of everything Wet Leg hinted at the first time around, now fully unchained. It’s raunchier, riskier, and often downright deranged. But it’s also, unmistakably, them.