Wet Leg – Moisturizer Review

Wet Leg return with an unconvincing new image and a set of very convincing songs. In treading the waters of lowercase lettering, niche pop culture references, and the outlandish misfit appeal, they become posers rather than authentic music makers. They are still a talented bunch, with the strengths of their debut album still riding high three years on. Moisturizer is not interested in picking up where Wet Dream and Chaise Longue left the band, though. The momentum is carried through but the style, the flourish which defined Wet Leg in previous years, where a packed-out Park Stage at Glastonbury were dancing around, is done. A footnote to the wider purpose of their sound by the looks of it. They have leaned into, objectively, the most uninteresting parts of their early work. Tropes of the online-obsessed culture. But looks can be deceiving, and what Moisturizer offers, really, is a strong showcase of fresh thoughts in familiar genres. 

Opener CPR was a slow and steady grower, released as the second single for the album. Solid work which has grown into its instrumental clangs and claxons. The shock of love can be heard on second song Liquidize, the continuation of lucky love and gaslighting yourself into appreciating a situation which could be better is right there. Once more the instrumental range is what carries the song – an alternative rock sound which picks up where Pixies left off in the nineties. This is not a loud and quiet offering, but a stylish interpretation of the genre, a broad overview which is pulled off through sincerity and spirit. Moisturizer feels relatively shallow yet increasingly honest and open with its listeners. There is luck in love, something few are touching on in song as they are overwhelmed by the more obvious passions. Rhian Teasdale picks up on it, though, struck down by love and struggling to adapt to its effects. That is where Moisturizer is at its most interesting.  

Wet Leg has shed its old sound and image, but only one has improved. Davina McCall has nothing to do with the former Big Brother presenter, and through this dissociation, this forced tongue-in-cheek performative style, the song loses a layer of that sincerity Wet Leg are still providing. A shame, too, as it marks one of the album’s best moments. Sincerity comes in waves with Moisturizer. Mangetout is a remarkable moment, where the openness of one person and the single-mindedness of another create an all-too-familiar, frightful contrast. Perhaps the very problem some may have with Moisturizer and the image Wet Leg is, in the long run, the point. We look for nostalgic parts of life, the film Jennifer’s Body or the late-night video game sessions, Pokémon on a dimmed DS, as substitutes for experience. Longing is just nostalgia without the memories. 

Pillow Talk explores that with some phenomenal, heavy instrumentals. Teasdale and the band find the right balance on this track, and it carries through to the rest of the album. Where Moisturizer may have begun as an unconvincing, pop-adjacent piece, it ends as an alternative rock powerhouse. A sexually charged, confident piece of work which layers nostalgia with a craving for intimacy and independence. Those opposites are what Wet Leg wishes to pull at, and they do so in a way which separates them from the rest of the art-rock pack. Ballad-like piece 11:21 is a blast of slowed charm after such heavy, instrumentally charged works preceding it. These are songs of singular infatuation but the deeper meaning, the independence Wet Leg holds onto as they interact with sex, life, and love, is what separates them better than their debut did.