Fear & Crankiness Keeps Me Going: BFTW 1/16/26

There probably isn’t any music I find more frustrating than a critical favorite that technically resembles what I love, without revealing any distinct value of its own. How else can I explain my ability to grumble about the new Dry Cleaning album while keeping tabs on Minnesota at the same time? You’d think an eccentric guitar band, whose vocalist details her anxiety & anomie with stark clarity, would provide an appropriate, heartening soundtrack to the concern and disconnect one feels when your country brazenly endorses extrajudicial violence against its own people, but not yet in your neighborhood. The guardrails of society removed while the traffic still speeds along is what Dry Cleaning is all about, right? So why am I muttering that The Mekons’ Fear & Whiskey turned 40 fucking years old last year, and my copy plays just fine?

Not that Secret Love, Dry Cleaning’s latest, is the spitting image of Fear & Whiskey, or any other post-punk platter of note. Guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard and drummer/programmer Nick Buxton broadly survey the history of “angular” underground rock, lurching like late ‘90s post-hardcore one minute and emulating the tinny flange of ‘80s English art-punk the next. The London band would fit right in on a hypothetical 50 Years Of Rough Trade Records box set, without slotting comfortably on a specific decade-long disc. Opening their third album with the gaudy trudge of “Hit My Head All Day,” and ending with the uptempo, Strokesy jangle of “Joy,” suggests Dry Cleaning is in it for the long haul, with a notably evolving palette. 

So if my problem isn’t facelessness, it must be the face. Atop the sonic grab-bag is vocalist Florence Shaw, once a visual arts lecturer (as was Dowse) before the guys asked her to contribute vocals to their jams. Shaw hadn’t sung before, but they gave her a mixtape of proof that you don’t need polish in post-punk, featuring singers like Grace Jones, Mark Murphy, etc. Soon, she revealed a gift for droll, superficially vacant sing-song narratives and poems about this modern life, touching on melody but comfortably aware there’s no need to hit one. Because precedent.

And there’s the rub: amateurish artistry safely ensconced in precedent. A non-singer who resembles well-known non-singers of yore, so you’d be a real ignoramus to complain about the non-singing. Even if the spoken-word tracks on Mekons albums were the ones you skipped. Even if every skewed inch towards pop taken by Dry Cleaning pales to Cristina’s Sleep It Off, or anything released on ZE Records. You can’t complain that glumly detailing a character’s pride in being a “Cruise Ship Designer” is a cliche exercise in irony (“making the most of a bad situation/ I make sure there are hidden messages in my work”), because we should kiss the ground someone’s even trying to emulate the blunt cultural criticism of Gang Of Four. 

If Dry Cleaning floats your boat, great. There’s not much difference between Shaw’s sense of humor and that of Matt Korvette’s, singer of the personally approved Pissed Jeans. I could say Pissed Jeans is actively being funny when describing struggles with push-ups, car maintenance, and other banal dramas, over a more commanding musical attack. But that’s a matter of taste. Different strokes for different folks. I just wish I had a better sense of if, and why, Dry Cleaning actually strokes people. Instead, I gather their mission is considered a worthy one.

Do fans not know the ‘80s acts on their band-birthing mixtape? Are well-wishers so focused on spending time with new music that re-enactments are more welcome? “I can’t indulge in the albums of 1982, I have to find eighty albums worth approving from 2026 by November!” Is "Fitter, Happier" their favorite Radiohead song? Would they thrill at a Mekons album that’s all spoken-word? Like how Eagles Of Death Metal beats Canned Heat for me because every vocals sounds like Alan Wilson? Underground rock traditionalism isn't a crime, but I don't know if it's a virtue without some utility or reward. In 2026, who needs someone to say “I must remember to brush my teeth, oral hygiene serves me well” in a flat, deadpan voice for them? 

(That’s an original lyric, by the way. My songwriting services are still available.)

I don’t want to step on anyone’s ego by saying Philip Sherburne is my favorite Pitchfork writer, but he’s certainly my soundscape sherpa. If this electronic/ambient enthusiast makes an album sound interesting, it usually is. Case in point is Debit’s Desaceleradas, a 2025 obscurity belatedly acknowledged on the site last week (as is the style of a review section in early January). You can read his review for a more thorough explanation of what Delia Betriz did to tapes of cumbia rejadada, and what the hell “cumbia rejadada” is. What I appreciate, as Sherbune notes, is that knowing the origins of Desaceleradas isn’t mandatory if you enjoy ghostly, ambiguous instrumental pieces. They only make the outcome cooler.

Most of my media consumption over the last week or so involved binging all five seasons of Z Nation, a zombie show that ran on Syfy from 2014 to 2018. It was produced by the Asylum, known primarily for “mockbusters” like Titanic II, Snakes On A Train and The Da Vinci Treasure. Therefore, yes, the success of The Walking Dead was undoubtedly a factor in Z Nation’s existence. One of the co-creators also brought us the ‘90s cult classic Eerie, Indiana, however, and Z Nation’s energy is more “we could do a better zombie show in our sleep” than “let’s make a zombie show while we sleep.” It’s nothing on my beloved Black Summer, the pseudo-prequel that got two seasons on Netflix. The Syfy show is more episodic, comic and sci-fi, compared to the ruthless, innovative, “what if a chapter of a novel could be one long take of breathlessly avoiding death” shit going in in Summer. But Nation is a joy, nonetheless. I’ll go on about it more after I give The Walking Dead another shot. The better to contrast and compare.

New albums I ain’t mad at: on first blush, Sault’s Chapter One feels more classicist (almost Mark Ronson-esque) and less commanding than their untitled 2020 albums. There’s also a bunch released in between I’ll probably investigate before I get back to this one. But Sault remains an intriguing experiment in collective UK R&B anonymity I want to be better about following. Rebuilding is FEMA camp-set drama starring Josh O’Connor, reportedly God’s gift to the theatrical experience in 2025 (I’ll likely have a take on him via streaming later this year). The score, courtesy of Jake Xerxes Russell and James Elkington, doesn’t transcend its role as accompaniment, but the folk/country instrumentals are warm rather than austere, and I want to investigate both artists further. 

If there's a Dry Cleaning song you really think overcomes my gripe, you can let me know. And if there's something fun to look out for in The Walking Dead, that's worth sharing too. Any streaming suggestions or scathing indictments you want to send along, use anthonyisright at gmail dot com for them, too.