Wet Leg seemed to come out of nowhere. Silly name. Lyrical double (and single) entendres. A Domino record deal off the back of a couple of tracks on SoundCloud. Within weeks, their June 2021 debut single Chaise Longue had flung the Isle of Wight duo from unknowns into the buzziest band around on just the basis of a few minutes of stupidly catchy guitar-pop.
That song hinted at how Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers could shove new wave, post-punk and incessant hooks into a raucous embrace. And yes, Chaise Longue set a high bar, with its Mean Girls reference and a bucolic music video (now watched more than 8.5m times). It was widely rated as one of the best songs of 2021. Could their first record make good on its promise? In April, their self-titled debut answered, conclusively, yes.
On one level, the album is an autopsy of a past relationship conducted with goofiness, with Teasdale often sounding openly disgusted by men before spraying a squirty-cream smiley face over that judgment. She doles out a savage assessment of an ex on Ur Mum – “When I think about what you’ve become / I feel sorry for your mum” – but tempers it by singing in the higher end of her register. If you’re not listening closely, it’s just a sunny, faintly psychedelic earworm. But as with single Wet Dream, the duo pair sweet with sour to disarm, then they pull you in close and whisper the real story in your ear. In Wet Dream, that’s one about an ex who, post-breakup, would tell Teasdale when she appeared in his dreams. Her response? “What makes you think you’re good enough to think about me / When you’re touching yourself?”
Wet Leg (the album) also deals in a sort of middle-class millennial malaise. Teasdale and Chambers pick at the scabs of being promised a great life then finding it wanting. Both Angelica and I Don’t Wanna Go Out seem exhausted by the pressure to enjoy yourself at parties. Oh No turns doomscrolling at 3am into something close to a jaunty, scuzzy nursery rhyme: “I went home, all alone / I checked my phone and now I’m inside it.”
If they sound worried, it’s because for a few years, they were. They met at music college on the Isle of Wight and fronted separate projects, Teasdale as Rhain and Chambers leading Hester and the Red Squirrel Band. It all sounded a bit dour. Once they started writing together as Wet Leg in 2019, they clocked that making music could be fun. But they were approaching their late 20s; Teasdale, especially, felt it would soon be time to get a “real job”. Adulthood didn’t look the way she felt she’d been promised. You hear that anxiety – a sigh of “I’m too old for this, right?” – throughout the album.
The worry is always balanced by something lighthearted. Plenty of music here is enjoyable just for the sake of it. And their gags and the sing-a-long choruses hint at an attitude so throwaway it’s almost absurdist. You could be cynical about Wet Leg’s ascent: in interviews, Teasdale and Chambers say things like: “we’re just little country bumpkins,” and “we write songs expecting them not to be listened to.” They sound unfussed.
That belies the stress and introspection they manage to cloak in humour throughout this debut. They clearly do care about making sense of their lives: would they have filled an album with their thoughts on modern life otherwise? They’re trying to be arch, sure. But look beyond the smirk and there’s skill, observational wit and melodies that burrow into your brain. Their viral hit wasn’t a one-off. No pressure for the next album, then.
