With their debut album, the
British garage rock band articulated the restless whirring of modern brains in funny, profoundly poetic songsMore on the best
music of 2021More on the best culture of 2021Oven chips, a Twix, a hot dog, sausages, mayonnaise, nuts, seeds, berries, sushi, pastries, chocolate mousse, pizza, chocolate chip cookies, a cream bun, a Müller Corner yoghurt. The lyrics on Dry Cleaning’s debut album are full of food but – some expensive mushrooms, a mixed salad and a “banging pasta bake” aside – it’s mostly the kind you pick at distractedly between meals, that doesn’t really satisfy you.
That horrible false satisfaction – of eating for something to do; of being full and yet not – is what this album gets at in such a simple, original way. The idle consumption seems to symbolise a wider malaise, a culture given to listlessness and living hand-to-mouth. Dry Cleaning are voicing the banality of contemporary life, and the feeling of impotence it can induce, in a more cleanly articulated voice than any band I can think of.