Wet Leg
Electric Ballroom, London
 

WHAT’S the deal with Wet Leg? Their first single Chaise Longue went viral, racking up millions of views, their much-anticipated and just-released eponymous debut album has topped the charts and their tour is selling out night after night.

Not bad for a band that were supposedly formed atop a ferris wheel one night on the Isle of Wight.

There’s a lot of expectation in the audience as the indie pop rock duo — Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers — take to the stage, but it is richly rewarded.

Opening with Being in Love, it starts as standard indie guitar-rock fare with a lyrical twist, the band are confident, tight, but extra layers start to emerge.

The words are evocative and repetitive in a good sense, third track Wet Dream is a top example of a good guitar riff, arch lyrics and shades of Le Tigre or CSS dance rock that gets the floor moving.

Supermarket is a paean to the end of lockdown and a return to the joys of mundane life like going on a weekly shop, with a chorus that you can imagine becoming a singalong at festivals.

In fact it is the band’s personality that fills the tunes and warms the room, there’s wordplay, swearing, satire and put downs aplenty, but in a nice rather than nasty sense.

The band are also generous — midset there’s a sweet shout out to Honeyglaze who were handpicked by Wet Leg as support for the tour and whose esoteric pop rock is worth catching.

But in the main this is a mix of good guitar pop echoing Elastica, clever bon mots to rival Sleafod Mods, and a band having fun.

Closing the set predictably with Chaise Longue, the post punk, pop rock goes down a storm and there’s no more wondering what the deal is with Wet Leg, put simply, if indie is up your street, then do believe the hype.

Ongoing tour dates info www.wetlegband.com.