moisturizer. Active ingredients: kinship, Davina McCall, tourburn, ketamine, true love, every Alien film, Dan Carey, devotion, the Solent, CPR dolls, rapid success, Jennifer and Needy, obsession, guitars, lesbian sex, Suffolk, and cabin fever. The ripping second album by Wet Leg, the Isle of Wight five-piece founded by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers is fun and freaky and fabulous, an unbridled display of the live muscle they built up over a few years of non-stop touring. Punchier, prettier and more perverted where it counts, moisturizer is an album of manic love songs and well-timed kiss-offs, delivered by a clan of the UK’s most beloved oddballs. Apply liberally.

In a sense, work on moisturizer began before Wet Leg’s self-titled 2022 debut album even came out. Touring with Ellis Durand (bass), Henry Holmes (drums), and Joshua Mobaraki (guitar, synth), Wet Leg developed into a taut, caustic live operation that made good on that album’s success: #1 chart placements at home and abroad, three Grammys, two Brits and over half a billion streams. If success presents a fork in the road for any new band – to “go pop” or keep following your muse – Wet Leg emphatically chose the latter path. They arrive into 2025 a peerless, road-tested unit, with a new willingness to bare their fangs in the form of abrasive guitar lines and brash, heavy-mettle beats.

moisturizer is out July 11th via Domino Recording Co.