Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork

Latest by Dry Cleaning is Stumpwork. It is another Dry Cleaning album in every sense - really cool spoken word and sparse, plodding guitars and drums. Plodding in a good sense if there is such a thing. Unhurried and unselfconscious with drums and jangly guitar that drag things along like a punk band that doesn’t care. Ho hum. Ho hum indeed! Until Don’t Press Me hits and the tempo pops up, there’s just a hint of lilt in the vocals, and the guitarist turns up the surf knob.

There’s a ton to like here. One would think that this band would drone on, but there are little hooks - sax riff at the end of Conservative Hell, actual sining on Don’t Press Me, outside the chords noise on Liberty Long - that pop up and demand your attention. You might even smile.

I dug Dry Cleaning’s first album New Long Leg, listened quite a bit, and will be listening to this one quite a bit as well. Probably get a copy on vinyl as it’s a vinyl kind of album. One that would get played on the High Fidelity soundtrack if High Fidelity were made today. Certainly worth your streaming pleasure and vinyl worthy.