Dry Cleaning's new LP Secret Love isn't the first album to be oversold/missold by its press release, and it won't be the last, but this is a particularly spectacular example: "Here, the south London four-piece take their place in rock's avant garde, catalysing the Reaganite paranoia of early 80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence's delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates' soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings' Sue Tompkins."
Needless to say, my interest was well and truly piqued - though dampened by a degree of scepticism, given a pronounced antipathy to their two previous efforts. And sure enough, the reality doesn't come close to living up to that promise - if that promise was even possible at all ("playful no wave", anyone?).
And yet I find Secret Love less irritating than either New Long Leg or Stumpwork. Maybe, with time (and a more consistent fourth record), I might finally come around - even if only grudgingly.
Buzz review here.
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