Similar to their sisters in sentiment if not genre, Wet Leg shares Florry’s deadpan vocal style that’s less about detachment and more about agency— using restraint as a form of power.
They haven’t abandoned the sarcasm, side-eye, or sing-song taunts that made their 2022 self-titled debut album explode, but this time, they’re wielding those tools with more control, more confidence and way more bite.
“Is it love or suicide?”
Let’s hit Hartsfield, hop the pond, and head to the Isle of Wight, where Wet Leg have quietly leveled up from buzz band to something that actually matters. Moisturizer is the album where they stop being just fun and start being something closer to essential. It’s not a reinvention. It’s a tightening of the screws.
From the jump, “catch these fists” comes in swinging with the kind of bratty momentum that channels the Go-Go’s at their most punk-adjacent — think Beauty and the Beat with bruises. The guitars chug and shimmy like a low-stakes bar fight you actually want to be part of, while Rhian Teasdale delivers lines like, “don’t approach me/I just want to dance with my friends,” with the casual indifference of someone who’s fully done explaining themselves.
But there’s also a shift happening under the surface. Comparable to Florry’s 2025 record Sounds Like…, moisturizer feels like a timely dispatch from inside a female experience that doesn’t need to scream to be heard. There’s humor, but also intimacy, tension, and quiet rebellion. These are albums that sit confidently in their own skin, uninterested in smoothing themselves out for the algorithm.
“Pokemon” is the syrupy center of moisturizer — a fizzy, lovestruck blast that feels like falling headfirst into a cartoon fantasy with the windows down. Teasdale sings “You taste so sweet like grenadine / You are my favorite human being” with such gentle conviction it feels like the world’s most low-key proposal. It’s got that sugar-coated urgency that recalls The Breeders at their poppiest — think “Divine Hammer” if it were powered by Red Bull and romantic optimism.
The Megan Fox cult-flick namecheck “Jennifer’s Body” is heavier, fuzzier, and borrows a bit of the slacker snarl that made early Strokes records feel so sneeringly invincible. But where Julian Casablancas sang like a guy too cool to care, Teasdale sings like a woman who has no choice but to care— and now knows exactly how to weaponize that.
“Davina McCall” slows things down without losing the edge — it’s dreamy, yes, but there’s tension beneath the softness, like a secret someone’s about to spill. And “u and me at home” might be the band’s most disarmingly sweet moment yet. It plays like their version of Neil’s “Harvest Moon” — not in sound, but in spirit. A hushed celebration of domestic bliss, full of small details and real affection. A toast gone cold, a shared silence, a comfort that doesn’t need to perform. It’s not flashy, but it lingers.
Sure, “liquidize” is a little throwaway and “don’t speak” feels like a gag that overstays its welcome, but moisturizer isn’t trying to be perfect, as even the missteps feel deliberate, like experiments from a band stretching into their next phase — more curious than careless.
And here’s when it hits best: moisturizer is a late afternoon in late spring record. Think 5:17 p.m., sun low and golden, windows cracked, maybe you’re walking home or just cracked a beer in your friend’s weirdly carpeted Candler Park kitchen. It’s warm enough to dance but just cool enough to feel a little melancholy. You might catch it on the Smith’s Olde Bar jukebox if someone hip got there first, but more likely it’s playing in a vinyl-friendly café like STEREO that turns into a bar after 6, where you suddenly realize you need to know what song this is.
At first glance, the moisturizer cover looks like it could be a cheeky ad for an indie skincare line or maybe a still from a European film about sisters who never leave the house. It’s soft, a little awkward, and vaguely retro — but in a curated, Instagram-through-a-dream kind of way. The lighting is all pastel haze, the vibe is “spa day on mushrooms,” and Wet Leg is right there in the middle, lounging like they just finished telling an inside joke you weren’t invited to hear. It’s the visual equivalent of a Wet Leg lyric — cool on the surface, slightly surreal if you stare too long.
Moisturizer proves Wet Leg’s deadpan isn’t a gimmick — it’s a language. And right now, they’re speaking it better than almost anyone. It’s early to make big declarations, but the leap from their self-titled debut to moisturizer brings to mind the Murmur-to-Reckoning jump — less jolting, maybe, but sharper, more self-assured, and built for the stage.
Megan’s favorite song on this album is “Catch These Fists.” On first listen, all I could daydream of was pairing this song with a fan edit video of Uma Thurman slashing through every enemy she encounters with her Hattori Hanzo sword in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.
This is the ultimate femme fatale track that fits perfectly into every girl’s night out playlist or even what you’d turn up to the max in your headphones to gaslight yourself into running a few miles. “Don’t approach me. I just want to dance with my friends,” rings out towards the end of this track as a reminder that you can get dressed up, go out, and act feral for yourself — not for any onlookers who may be brave enough to intervene in the fun. It’s a punch in the face from hot pink boxing gloves that are covered in sweat but still smell like perfume.
Wendell’s favorite song on the album is “mangetout,” and not just for the quick Google Translate workout for our French-illiterate. It’s bratty, it’s barbed, and it absolutely bangs. The guitars churn with that familiar Wet Leg buzz, while Ellis Durand’s bassline pulses like a lie detector test someone just failed. That little shift from “cool” to “cruel” is a gut punch that captures how fast admiration curdles into objectification. It’s proof that being just a little bit mean can be the most liberating kind of self-care.
Wet Leg is available on Bandcamp, all streaming platforms, and all places where records are sold. They were on NPR Tiny Desk in July, and you can find that here: WLTD You are likely to find their songs played on SiriusXM stations Alt Nation and SiriusXMU. They will be playing Sept. 21 at Shaky Knees, and we can’t wait to dance like banshees while trying not to catch anyone’s fists.
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