Dry Cleaning, Secret Love

If you were around before South London band Dry Cleaning’s current album cycle, you may remember the cryptic nature of their social media presence, plastered mostly with simple line drawings on plain white backgrounds (drawings at times absent and un-accounted for, leaving only white screen) paired with playfully cloying captions. They’ve swapped these now for the all-too-necessary promotional materials, but the spirit remains, preserved by the occasional reappearance of a delightfully shoddy drawing of a candle or butterfly or some such. This should give you all the framing you need to understand what makes Dry Cleaning so spectacularly refreshing. They’re strange in a way that’s uncontrived and, better yet, backed by technical prowess and compelling sonic impressions. Secret Love is the latest proof. 

Produced by Cate Le Bon–who’s fresh off of an album release of her own–Secret Love is more or less a continuation of what the band has become known and loved for. Singer and visual artist Florence Shaw’s syncopated talk-singing and her band’s sharp-edged instrumentation are post-punk at its finest. But continuation is not to be mistaken for stagnation. It’s a record that comes alive in its flourishes: a brief lilt in Shaw’s flatline voice, a sudden etch of sound in a sparse sonic landscape, a smirk-inducing turn of phrase. Dry Cleaning is allowing themselves to really shimmer here, wandering in and around a new set of sounds with a keen sense of subtlety.   

At the heart of any Dry Cleaning record are Shaw’s vocals and lyrics. They’re a highly literary band, living comfortably in a postmodern framework. The lyrics can be nonsensical, yet entirely pointed. They’re abstract, yes, but not in a way that implies an intention to shroud or obfuscate. It’s a game of capturing essence, whether that be on an individual scale or a commentary of the social systems we live in. In lead single “Hit My Head All Day,” Shaw intones robotically about fighting tooth and nail to break a cycle of monotony, even at the expense of control, singing “I simply must have experiences / Manipulate me, wiggle my arms.” Immediately after, she takes on the persona of a shrewd, purpose-seeking businessperson in “Cruise Ship Designer,” with her addictive oscillation between monotony and sudden upspeak on full display. But lest things become too on-the-nose, Shaw throws in a final wrench by ending on the line “I make sure there are hidden messages in my work,” which kind of perfectly encapsulates the sense you get when listening to any Dry Cleaning song. 

At first listen, it may seem easy to conclude that Dry Cleaning is Dry Cleaning simply for the presence of Shaw’s signature dryness, but the backing work from guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, and drummer Nick Buxton has just as distinct a personality. Every part of the instrumentals is deliberately placed for maximal intensity. (Shaw’s vocals have cornered the market on charming doldrum.) Take for example, the expansiveness of “Blood,” followed immediately by the sparseness of “Evil Evil Idiot,” which itself is not without its come-to-attention blasts of sound. In “Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit,” the guitar part stands totally apart from the rest of the record, halfway evoking a slowcoreish Sun Kil Moon-type melody. The bassline in “Hit My Head All Day” lands in a decidedly funky way. The album ends on “Joy,” which contains an 80s/90s jangle that’ll take you by surprise. It’s like Parquet Courts if they were grimier or maybe Slint if they weren’t quite as leaden. 

The cohesiveness that exists in these instrumentations despite how they jut in all different directions is perhaps actually a result of Shaw’s reliable vocal presence. It’s something that can bore down into you while you ride the wave of the rest of what you’re hearing, although her vocals aren’t without their own forays into experimentation. She is much more prone to full-on singing on Secret Love than on past records, most notably in the chorus of the title track. But as with the album’s instrumentation, the expansion doesn’t come at the cost of the band’s identity. The bones are still intact, just with some new muscles.

Secret Love by Dry Cleaning released January 9th, 2026, via 4AD