Wet Leg

“Chaise Longue” catapulted Wet Leg's Hester Chambers and Rhian Teasdale from one of the world's least buzzy places, the Isle of Wight, to international acclaim.

With a new wave bounce and hilariously deadpan vocals, British group Wet Leg have created an infectious and deceptively sly debut album.

There’s even a kind-of ballad called “Loving You” that showcases the upper reaches of Teasdale’s voice, complete with a Kinks-esque “la la la” on the chorus (but we’ll bet they won’t know that reference either). (The downside of that simplicity comes on the next song, “Oh No,” which is not the strongest.) But within weeks of sending around a private link containing four songs with their now-trademark new wave bounce and hilariously deadpan vocals, the deliberately ridiculously named Wet Leg had top management and a record deal.

Isle Of Wight duo add emotional depth to punk-pop mischief on confident debut.

Brisk and adrenalised, Wet Leg leaves little room to get bored, and is impressively low on filler for a debut. Generously laced with weapons-grade swearing, a streak of delicious disdain runs through Teasdale’s lyrics on Wet Leg, mostly directed towards ex-boyfriends and their new partners. And “Convincing”, sweetly cooed by Chambers, is a gorgeously compact mini-drama about heartbreak and night swimming which must surely be the first song ever to feature the line “bioluminescent plankton shit”. Classy. Its lesser sequel “Wet Dream” is more conventionally indie-rock in sound and more overtly sexual in content, but still a gold-plated banger laced with caustic humour. Punchy and witty, “Being In Love” is a thumpingly great album opener, with Teasdale cooing in woozy mid-Atlantic tones about the horribly addictive sadomasochistic delights of love over a pulsing synth-rock groove. After their former folk-tinged project fizzled out in 2019, Isle Of Wight duo Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers adopted a new name and sound with the intention of making music that was emphatically fun, “goofy and a little bit rude”. Signing to indie hit-maker label Domino, home of Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand, they struck a perfect mood-lifting chord for the end of Covid lockdown, selling out their riotous live shows and even making waves in America. But this debut album arrives in darker, more serious times.

Wet Leg fulfills expectations for its awaited debut album with a collection of catchy, dazzling songs.

The rhythm guitar shines best when paired with percussion, as Teasdale repeats the evocative line “It’s enough, it’s enough, it’s enough, it’s enough (to make a girl blush)”; it’s infectious and lively. The record holds such a compelling collection of songs, it’s already exciting to await what Wet Leg will come up with next. The true magic of the record comes in the moments where Chambers and Teasdale share songwriting duties, as they both have a dirty, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. “Loving You” is another Teasdale-penned track—a solemn, synth-and-guitar-driven number about the disappointment in the fallout with someone who plays with her emotions—despite them having a new partner. Teasdale and Chambers don’t have famous parents, either; the duo got attention this fast mostly through word of mouth (being signed to Domino surely helped, too). The band released six singles ahead of the album’s arrival: “Chaise Longue,” “Angelica,” “Wet Dream,” “Too Late Now,” “Oh No,” and “Ur Mum.” All have been fantastic in their own way, but the songs that were kept for the record feature some of Wet Leg’s best work yet. There’s “I Don’t Wanna Go Out,” that perfectly articulates that point in your late twenties where you’re too young to give up on your aspirations, but still feel jaded and discouraged.