Dry Cleaning- Secret Love

ALBUM REVIEW

The Ordinary as Extraordinary: Dry Cleaning Reaches New Heights

There are bands that intrigue you from the very first moment, and there are bands that slowly creep under your skin until you realise you can no longer do without them. Dry Cleaning unquestionably belongs to the latter category. With their third album Secret Love, the London foursome has delivered a work that is not only their most layered production to date, but also compelling proof that spoken word post-punk is far from exhausted. Anyone familiar with their breakthrough single ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’ – with that famous line about the ‘Tokyo bouncy ball’ – knows that Florence Shaw and her companions can transform the mundane into something extraordinary.

Since their 2021 debut New Long Leg and the swift follow-up Stumpwork a year later, Dry Cleaning have established themselves as frontrunners of what has been called the ‘sprechgesang wave’: bands combining spoken text with tight, angular post-punk guitars. The excitement surrounding Stumpwork, which many hailed as genius at the time, has since tempered somewhat. But where some bands would buckle under that waning hype, this foursome – consisting of vocalist Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard and drummer Nick Buxton – opts for depth. And depth they have found: Secret Love has once again become a rock-solid album.

A New Producer, Standing on Giants’ Shoulders

The most significant change for this third album was the choice of a new producer. After two records with John Parish (known for his work with PJ Harvey), they now opted for Welsh musician Cate Le Bon, herself a respected artist with her own distinctive sound. It’s perfectly fine that the band takes this step and seeks new collaborations, but let us not forget Parish’s genius: he was the one who put Dry Cleaning in their power and laid the foundation upon which they now continue to build. Without his work on New Long Leg and Stumpwork, this band could never have stood where they stand today.

The encounter with Le Bon happened by chance: during the 2022 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, they were greeted backstage by Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, who invited them to his studio, The Loft. There, Le Bon was just working on the production of Wilco’s Cousin. The spark ignited, and what followed was an intensive collaboration at Black Box Studios in the Loire Valley in France.

Le Bon’s influence is palpable throughout without overshadowing the band. Where the first two albums were characterised by a certain insular, pandemic-related atmosphere, Secret Love breathes more space and light. The production is more lush yet remains intimate, a combination that could have been a risk for this band but instead turns out to be their strongest asset.

The Voice of a Generation

Florence Shaw remains the constant factor and beating heart of Dry Cleaning. The former illustration lecturer, who joined the project in her mid-thirties without any band experience, has developed a unique voice that hovers somewhere between beat poetry and everyday commentary. Her lyrics often consist of fragments: overheard conversations, notes on her phone, observations from advertisements and the internet. On ‘The Cute Things’ she describes twins at an impasse: ‘We’re meant to be from the same egg, but you confuse me.’ It is precisely this mix of the recognisable and the absurd that makes her work so compelling.

The title track ‘Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)’ showcases Shaw at her most melodic. She increasingly experiments with singing rather than speaking, which for some critics is a weak point – her sung passages can sound somewhat hesitant – but which simultaneously adds a vulnerability that makes the band more human. The title track itself contains observations that are typically Dry Cleaning: ‘New York has been pretty good / We have a couple of days left and as yet I have seen no one famous.’ It is this combination of the mundane and the poetic that distinguishes the band from their contemporaries.

The Highlights: Bass as Secret Weapon

Opener ‘Hit My Head All Day’ is, at over six minutes, one of the longest tracks the band has ever made. It begins with a relentless drum loop reminiscent of Iggy Pop’s ‘Nightclubbing’, while Maynard channels his inner Tina Weymouth. Shaw delivers some of her driest, funniest lines: ‘When I was a child / I wanted to be a horse.’ It’s a statement of intent that makes clear this band has no intention of repeating themselves.

But the absolute highlight of this album is without doubt ‘My Soul / Half Pint’. What a gorgeous track. Jeff Tweedy contributes guest guitar, and his elastic guitar lines dance like a duster and vacuum through the stereo field – fitting for a song about the frustrations of housework. But it’s Lewis Maynard’s bass that steals the show here. What a sound! The way those bass lines wind through the track, how they fill the space without overpowering, how they both carry and challenge the rhythm – it’s nothing short of masterful. On this album, Dry Cleaning has developed a bass sound that will inspire many upcoming albums by other artists. Mark my words: in a few years, we’ll hear this influence echoed in countless bands.

‘Blood’ forms the emotional centrepiece of the album, with Le Bon’s dynamic production perfectly underscoring the misanthropic paranoia that courses through the track. The jangly guitars support Shaw’s opaque observations about mortality and deep shocks felt in the body. Elsewhere, ‘Rocks’ delivers one of Dowse’s rawest, most noise-like guitar parts, combined with an industrial snare that would have been too far even for the band’s early EP period.

Special mention goes to ‘Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit’, a beautiful folk-tinged track reminiscent of Bristol band Movietone that slowly blossoms into a devastating portrait of loneliness. It shows how versatile the band has become. The album closes with ‘Joy’, a rare, clear-eyed burst of optimism that feels hard-won rather than naive. When Shaw asks the listener ‘not to give up on being sweet’, the album achieves a kind of grace.

Critical Notes

No album is perfect, and Secret Love is no exception. Some critics point out that ‘Cruise Ship Designer’ loses momentum somewhat and doesn’t fully earn its runtime. The sung choruses, whilst charming in their vulnerability, don’t always convince – Shaw is at her strongest when operating in her beat-poet mode. And although Le Bon’s production is generally praised, some listeners find the choices on the safe side compared to what the band did before.

Yet these are minor quibbles in the bigger picture. This isn’t an album that will change anyone’s mind about Dry Cleaning, but for those who were already fans, it’s a whole new collection of treasures to discover.

Conclusion

Secret Love is proof that Dry Cleaning were never just a novelty act destined to fade quickly. The excitement surrounding Stumpwork may have subsided somewhat, but this band responds with depth rather than repetition. Three albums in, they prove that their unique formula – Shaw’s stream-of-consciousness observations over tight post-punk arrangements – is endlessly elastic. With Metacritic calling the album ‘universally acclaimed’ with an average score of 90/100, and five-star reviews from MOJO and other leading publications, the consensus is clear.

The band has transcended their original remit, left their initial novelty value behind, and moves confidently into new spaces. Their idiosyncratic setup proves endlessly elastic: as big as they want, as small as they need, to capture the chaos of the world. With thanks to the foundation John Parish laid, and with the fresh energy Cate Le Bon adds, Dry Cleaning has once again delivered a rock-solid album. Secret Love proves that the ordinary is worth mining for the extraordinary – and that the bass might just be the secret weapon.

★★★★☆

(8.5/10)

(4AD Records)

Tracklist:

Release: January 9, 2026

Producer: Cate Le Bon

Label: 4AD Records

Dry Cleaning- Secret Love

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