Dry Cleaning – Stumpwork Dry Cleaning seeped quickly onto the scene, debuting with two of the best EPs from 2019 and one of the best albums of 2021. The fact that they were so quick to rush out a second album was concerning. Was it a rush job, or a lighter album helmed on tour stops? Neither, in fact the seeds of Stumpwork were written before New Long Leg was even finished, which cements that not only are the band prodigious writers, but that when the band is given more time to hone their songs, as they do here, the results are that much stronger. While the previous albums played within a very specific, talk-sing, post-punk wheelhouse, Dry Cleaning’s newest blows any projected constraints away. Florence Shaw is still iconoclastically unique in her vocal style and presence, but it never feels like a gimmick, instead it sounds like she is beholden to the tracks, wrestling with the lyrics and the anxiety of the complex guitar and instrumental work, with the finished product as em...
a subjective look at objective sounds