“Secret Love”, is the new record by London avant-indie heroes Dry Cleaning came out on January 9th, and as they have said it is one which takes their unclassifiable spoken-word doom rock oddness to new undeniably genius heights.
The South London four-piece are back with their third record, “Secret Love”, enlisting the help of Cate Le Bon on production for a fresh take on their trademark post-punk sprechgesang and sharp observations.
“Secret Love” moves smoothly between a darker, more intense sound to softer, intimate moments. “Blood” is one of the most striking and perhaps the most transparent in its lyrics. Deconstructing the modern inevitability of witnessing atrocities half a world away on our screens, singer Florence Shaw laments our own sense of complicity as she sings, “Blood on my skin and hands and nails, and in my eyes as well / I try to see”. Evil Evil Idiot continues this darker tone with ominous instrumentation and lyrics about raw meat, carcinogens and chemicals.
Balancing this intensity are cuts like “The Cute Things” and the titular “Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)”, painting a more personal picture. “Joy” ends the album with a kick, reflecting on the radical act of finding happiness in a dystopian world.
The deadpan delivery of Shaw’s lyrics makes analysis a tricky thing. In the aforementioned “Cruise Ship Designer“, she concludes the song with the statement “There are hidden messages in my work”. Is it a less-than-subtle hint for the listener to look deeper into the songs? Does it poke fun at those who read too much into the things? These more absurd moments contrast the more straight-to-the-point lyrics; “Blood” reflecting on war and complicity, or “My Soul / Half Pint” touching on domestic burden.
Perhaps the hidden message is that, like the cruise ship designer, we should stop overthinking everything.
So sit back and enjoy the album. Shaw’s straight-faced delivery pairs beautifully with her bandmates’ intricate guitars and grooving basslines throughout. “Secret Love” is a profoundly modern album – puzzling, but endearingly so.
it’s a strong early shout for the Mercury Prize right here.
I can’t make up my mind whether Dry Cleaning‘s new album “Secret Love“, the follow-up to 2022’s “Stumpwork”, is their darkest or most optimistic, precisely because it blurs the line between harmlessness and real horror, self-growth and destruction. In that way it’s certainly their dreamiest, with subtle, reconstructive production from Cate Le Bon, who helps the band break out of their shell by making them sound more like themselves. It’s hard to take that the wrong way.
Dry Cleaning unveiled their third studio album “Secret Love”, produced by Cate Le Bon. Written together in Peckham rehearsal rooms, it reflects the close ties between Florence Shaw, Tom Dowse, Nick Buxton and Lewis Maynard, each song built from their instinctive interplay.
The south London quartet draw on early ’80s punk paranoia, Stones-like swagger, stoner heaviness, no wave angles and pastoral touches. Shaw’s measured delivery stands alongside spoken-word figures such as Laurie Anderson and Sue Tompkins, woven seamlessly into the band’s shifting soundscapes.
“Secret Love” took shape across varied sessions: at Jeff Tweedy’s Loft studio in Chicago, Sonic Studios in Dublin with members of Gilla Band, and finally at Black Box in the Loire Valley with Le Bon, chosen for her positivity and openness.
Trust is the record’s central theme, introduced by opener ‘Hit My Head All Day’, a playful yet cutting track tackling misinformation, manipulation and the difficulty of knowing who to believe.
The Fat Angel Sings 