Apricot Colour Vinyl - indie exclusive - INCLUDES SIGNED PRINT
Imagine the privilege in being the best at what you do. It's something Dry Cleaning need not work too hard at having to think about. Secret Love does the heavy lifting for them and with it blazes a trail through a field of pretenders that's undoubtedly become bloated since they first emerged back in 2019. This is their third album, that allegedly trickly period for bands of a certain type when they're no longer purely existent in the moment and need to start thinking about longevity, legacy, the where to next. It's a set of challenges they've not so much circumnavigated but instead considered long and hard (the highly savvy choice of Cate Le Bon as producer is evidence of that) and then decided to just do whatever feels right and best. That feeling amounts to their strongest record to date. Their instincts and interests prove as sharpened as ever, still sounding unmistakably like Dry Cleaning (and, crucially, certainly not like any of the seemingly endless aforementioned inferior copycat outfits that have followed in their wake) and yet markedly evolved, bypassing the potential limitations that can arise when a group is so singular straight out the gate. There is new flesh on the bone here. Florence Shaw remains a very distinct kind of vocalist, sort of still doing the sprechgesang thing yes, but finding new ways to bend and shape her delivery so that new avenues of thought and intrigue keep cropping up as if it's the first time you've heard her do that very distinct kind of thing. More to the point, she's simply a very compelling performer you want to lean in close to hear - if the words have always been important, it's now increasingly the way they sound rolling out of her mouth that puts added value in the experience. And to the point of performance - the band are playing out of their skin, more elastic, groove-laced and strange than ever before, flexing their disparate interests while displaying a very obvious kinship that always gravitates back towards an off-kilter melodic centre. Comparisons to other acts has always been tricky, and now with this latest collection feels increasingly pointless. Dry Cleaning are the best at what they do, which is simply be themselves. There's just as much to learn through that as there is to enjoy.
