Wet Leg returns on Moisturizer, ready to fight
By NICK TAVARES
STATIC and FEEDBACK Editor
The first song I caught from Wet Leg’s Moisturizer was “catch these fists.” I was in the car, the cymbals were thrashing, the bass thumping, the guitar wailing and, out of that massive sound, everything dropped and fell into an instantly memorable refrain:
“I know all too well just what you’re like
I don’t want your love, I just want to fight.”
I almost breathed a sigh of relief when I first heard “catch these fists.” It was all there: the sense of humor, the twisted angles, the edgy production, the absolutely brutal message.
And it came with an overwhelming feeling of, “oh good, this wasn’t a fluke.”
I think back to the first time I heard “Chaise Longue,” from Wet Leg’s debut record, and how I thought, “ha, cool song. Weird video, that was fun.” But then I kept playing it. And then I stumbled on “Wet Dream” and “Angelica,” and then I was buying the record and listening to it constant and, finally, discovering that this was exactly the kind of out-of-left-field band I used to pray would fall into my lap back in the day. But those bands, for whatever reason, evaded my grasp for so long that I’d forgotten that sensation.
Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers lead the band through a scorcher of a sophomore record, taking that feeling that too many women have experienced just trying to live their lives and enjoy themselves while navigating a near never-ending cycle of harassment.
The feeling continues on “mangetout,” with Teasdale, after barely disguising the message with some cutting sarcasm, is finally forced to say, “Nice try, now get out of the way / Good job, just take the fucking hint” when the guy in the way hasn’t yet taken the fucking hint, as it were.
On the other side, Chambers offers a lighter but no less compelling counterpoint to Teasdale’s heavier delivery on songs like “pokemon” and “don’t speak,” rounding out the entire record and keeping the points of view varied enough to run the whole 40 minutes back on repeat as soon as it’s over.
The sense of humor that accompanies all these instantly catchy moments pushes everything over the top. Why are we calling 999 (the British equivalent to 911, I’ve since learned)? Because we’re in love and this is in no way a tolerable situation. To a dude here making some unwanted advances, well, can you catch a medicine ball? If you’re still here, can you read this, it probably looks like “man get out.” Well, you’re in the way. Get lost forever.
Maybe all of this registers because it is so out of my level of experience. I’m clearly not a woman in her early thirties, and as much as I can empathize and understand and know the right and wrong of a situation, I’ll never live that side of it. But Teasdale and Chambers have lived it all too often, and their perspective on the situation is at once infectious and intriguing. It’s possible to be livid at a situation and still have a laugh about it, and they manage this over and over.
So here we are, with another chapter in Wet Leg’s journey. We’ve moved on from laughing off Buffalo 66 as a pick-up line to threatening to throw hands with a wink and a smile. It’s serious as a heart attack and devastating as the most wicked put-down. It’s AC/DC’s “Shot Down in Flames” from the opposite perspective, and it’s glorious.
And if the next record is just as brilliant, I won’t be surprised or relieved. I’ll be expecting it, because this stuff is just special.
E-mail Nick Tavares at nick@staticandfeedback.com