A few weeks before I reviewed this next album my friend Randall texted to ask me if I’d heard it (at that time I’d bought it and given it a single listen). He texted back later that same evening to say he’d been listening to it a bit more and he’d decided he didn’t like it after all. I assumed at the time he was crazy, but as it happens, he was absolutely right.
Disc 1516 is…. New Long Leg
Artist: Dry Cleaning
Year of Release: 2021
What’s up with the Cover? Up close, this looks to be nothing more than “look how long my shadow looks in the late afternoon sun.” But no, Dry Cleaning has included two additional photos – maybe so we could contemplate if those would have made better covers? The top photo is a close up of some kind of machinery smashing concrete. The bottom photo is a wide shot featuring a backhoe digging in a deep pit.
Would either of these covers have been better than the shadow picture? No. Was it worth including them for some other reason? No. All this cover proves is that when you are in a hole, you should stop digging.
How I Came To Know It: I read two reviews of this album, one on Paste Magazine (8.2/10) and one on Pitchfork (8.6/10). Both these reviews were much too effusive in their praise but as we will see, initially misjudging this record is easy to do.
How It Stacks Up: This is my only Dry Cleaning album (they have a couple EPs, but I don’t have them) so it can’t stack up.
Ratings: 2 stars
“New Long Leg” is the musical equivalent of seeing an interesting looking person at a party that you don’t know. This person is sitting alone on the couch, and there is something weirdly wonderful about them. Maybe they’re wearing an incredibly large belt buckle or staring at the host’s art a bit too closely. Maybe they’re drinking a Zima in a casual way that suggests they have no idea it’s been extinct for years.
You go up to this stranger (since no one else seems to be doing that) and they engage you with a bit of dashing repartee. They appear to have a quick wit they’re easy on the eyes as well (if we’re being honest, this is another reason you braved the stranger-danger in the first place). The problem is that after 10 minutes of conversation you realize those two or three witty rejoinders are the sum total of their depth, and while they are indeed weird, they are weird in a very boring way. You spend the next 30 minutes (if you’re lucky) trying to extricate yourself from the conversation, until some other poor fool approaches who doesn’t know them and you slip away and back to your friends.
Not unlike Paste, Pitchfork and my friend Randall, I was initially smitten with this record. It features groovy basslines, eighties style guitar riffs and the magnetic deadpan spoken word delivery of singer Florence Shaw. The combination is a post-punk potpourri of sound you don’t always hear together, and your ear enjoys the novelty of it all.
The opening track (and single) is “Scratchcard Lanyard.” It has a quirky electronic drum beat and a delightful bass riff, and a churning groove that makes you think, “this is good, and I would like a lot more of it!” The record then proceeds to give you lesser versions of the same formula, and for a while you like that as well. It is all just so new!
On repeat listens, however, this novelty quickly wears off. Shaw’s vocals are hypnotic, her English accent is delightfully noticeable, and she just generally sounds too cool for school. However, spoken word poetry has to be more than a delightful drone; it needs to have something to say. At the very least, it needs some kind of continuity of imagery. With Dry Cleaning, things that seem deep and evocative initially quickly reveal themselves as idle stream of consciousness.
As for the riffs, like I said they are solid. No complaints. But over time you realize they are never going to advance. They’re just going to cycle about pointlessly. It’s the kind of music is pleasant enough to do housework, but that never develops into anything. It just hums, gurgles and circles around like a washing machine.
For some these irritants might be a feature rather than a bug. However, since my busy week trapped me with the record for multiple listens, I found them progressively more annoying. Even the lyrics, which initially felt whimsical, began to grate. There is a bit of “stoner music for dummies” going on here, like that party guest is also high and under the mistaken impression they are saying something profound.
As for the critical acclaim, I get it. Like professional music critics, I hear a lot of new music in a year, and when you hear something like “New Long Leg” the newness of the sound is intriguing. The band plays tight, for a debut record they have a clear sense of who they are, and the production has an appealing layering to it. After a while though I wanted it to stop its pointless idle musing, get up off the couch and do something.
Best tracks: Scratchcard Lanyard, New Long Leg
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