Words by Polly Hill
Upon listening, it's hard to grasp the world Dry Cleaning vocalist Florence Shaw sings from. It introduces itself in ‘Hit My Head All Day’ as an Orwellian dystopia, begging the listener to “manipulate me, wiggle my arms” in an effort to “control people’s thinking”, but moves throughout realms as the album plays out. It travels from heartfelt domesticity, to wartime bunkers, to the “cute, harmless horrorland” described in the album’s final track ‘Joy’.
You’re not quite sure what to make of it, and yet it’s a journey hard to look away from. Balanced with Shaw’s monologue worldbuilding, dense, rich, layers of guitar, bass, drums and percussion do more than just accompany the lyrics, animating dialogue that often feels like a private spiel of inner thoughts into a strong body of music that picks its listeners up and takes them along with it.
Dry Cleaning are well-known for bizarrities like this, and Secret Love does not disappoint eager fans at all in that sense. Its opener and first single ‘Hit My Head All Day’ kicks off the album with a muted, steady beat for Shaw to perform over, similar to that of the band's earlier work, but soon establishes its instrumental prowess with a scorching, New Order-esque earworm of a guitar riff and a spiky eighties-style bassline to match.
A blended balance of instrument and vocals is a running theme throughout the album, which seems to work well especially in its latter half, as much of Dry Cleaning’s history has justifiably been characterised by Shaw's vocals at the forefront. In the ever-changing and always overlapping layers of melody, guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, and drummer Nick Buxton have the chance to both show off their individual talents and their harmony as a band, in outrightly fabulous performances that have previously been slightly more like that of a backing track.
‘Cruise Ship Designer’ does exactly what it says on the tin, with Shaw stating “I desire very much a place in society, so designing cruise ships is my pastime”, and does it well with a classic post-punk jangly guitar rhythm. ‘My Soul/Half Pint’, however, begins to adventure into more emotional territory. The song is reminiscent of current punk rock classics, in particular ‘Bailing on Me’ from Amyl and the Sniffers’ most recent record Cartoon Darkness: in a music scene increasingly seeing the punk-isming of bands new to the genre like Wet Leg or Wolf Alice, this shouldn’t be seen as inauthentic but more in keeping with the times. The track does not necessarily stand out, though; although more tender lyrics such as “I feel resentment in my soul” do provide some food for thought, it’s fair to say the musical harmony of later tracks isn't fully reached by this point in the album.
With the (sort of) title track ‘Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of Boy)’, Shaw’s recent artistic choice to expand more into a talk-singing hybrid is truly foregrounded, perhaps provoked by the group’s new production under Cate Le Bon or, again, the current success of artists who use this style such as Baxter Dury.'Secret Love', and more so its gentler successor ‘Let Me Grow and You’ll See The Fruit’ also mark a zenith in the synonymity of voice and instrument that will come to characterise the rest of the album. Sung phrases flow easily along layers of impressively fiddly acoustic fingerpicking and jazz melodies, with Shaw stating it was written in “a stream of consciousness style”. Le Bon’s experimental, surreal personal style takes influence here and the results are successful.
More of this success can be seen in the next three tracks, ‘Blood’, ‘Evil, Evil Idiot’, and ‘Rocks’: the midsection of the album is where Dry Cleaning really take form and do what they do best, bathing wacky, honest lyrics in a pool of sonic excellence. Whether you’re a Cocteau Twins or an AC/DC fan, the seventies influences of Tom Dowse and his favour of “guitar sounds that have a bit of depth to them... things that are a bit indistinct” are clear, making this trio a standout of the album.
It’s tempting to over-analyse Shaw’s lyrics in some of the more reduced Dry Cleaning songs, but ‘Blood’ puts more faith in the abstract: whilst there are certainly tangible, passionate lyrics such as "people are worse than you think, there are people who really don’t care”, Shaw’s whispery, gentle presentation and the repetitive, steady guitar rhythms allow a listener more space to think and feel for themselves instead of being fed a story.
'Evil, Evil Idiot’, arguably the album’s finest, matches this half-sung, half-spoken cadence with a surprisingly intense and creeping blues-like backing that makes its slightly threatening lyrics even more emphasised, again definitely aided by Le Bon’s own discordant style. The song is tense and haunting, the type of thing that’d give you the creeps if you listened to it while walking home. With it, the range of emotions exhibited in Secret Love grows to an impressively-sized collection.
‘Rocks’ is similarly unrelenting and supports this drive with some undeniable classic electric guitar, and as much as Shaw’s lyrics make the songs what they are, any of the album, but particularly these three, would make wonderful listening even just as instrumentals. For a spoken-word band that’s saying something.
The album’s final three songs, kicking off with a David Byrne-esque riff in ‘The Cute Things’, carry on this theme to round off Shaw’s story and similarly mark the guitar and bass as a defining characteristic, with the subdued electronica of 'I Need You' making me yearn for a 2026 repeat of the band’s 2021 Tiny Desk session. The flair of ‘Joy’ as the final track, summarising the album’s diversity by contrasting cheery, typically indie melodies with lyrics such as “Feed those chemicals inside, macho in its death throes”, closes the album on a lighter note than the previous track’s "Fuck the world", yet does not give an entirely happy ending.
The world Shaw writes from remains as perplexing and disturbing as it was right off the bat, and this is indeed the magic of Dry Cleaning: they do not offer a specific meaning or solution, instead using their “hidden messages” to create a space for audiences to think about, reflect upon and substantiate the seemingly nonsensical lyrics – but doing so, of course, with a fabulously funky set of songs behind them.
The album does not do anything wholly unexpected, it should be said. Whilst it marks a step forwards for Dry Cleaning, the step is muted, and perhaps more necessary than absolutely desired with the less positive reviews of their second studio album Stumpwork. Secret Love is unlikely to turn a die-hard hater into a fan, and whilst the album develops chronologically well, certain couples of songs, particularly towards the middle, do sound quite similar – granted that there isn’t a huge amount of room for change especially inside the spoken-word genre.
But this is hardly the point. Each song is a performance, and each being accompanied by their own music video of various ordinary people dancing in their own ways only furthers the sense that Secret Love is both a story in itself, and a collection of stories. Shaw’s masterminded oddness blends and works together with the progressing and riveting accompaniments of her instrumentalists throughout, to create a bewildering, hypnotic third album that serves to well-satisfy listeners seeking a “Total work of art, for you”.
https://open.spotify.com/album/79o6ZvFsXaAkL9MHCE6ts4?si=KeGqMFvJROKo_5X00rW-tA
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