Dream Wife
enjoyed a critical and commercial peak with their 2020 breakthrough album
So When You Gonnaâ?¦
that most notably included a place in the Top 20 of the U.K. Albums chart. However, the album's release during the darkest days of the COVID-19 global pandemic meant a piece of their success was missing:
Alice Go
,
Rakel Mjoell
, and
Bella Podpadec
couldn't tour in support of
the way they wanted to. Instead, they channeled that raw energy into their next album. Produced by
Go
and mixed by
Alan Moulder
and
Caesar Edmunds
(who have worked with
heroes like
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
and contemporaries like
Wet Leg
),
Social Lubrication
puts the trio's rock first. While they didn't exactly downplay their heavy side on
, they may have rounded off its edges a bit, making the onslaught of tracks like the fittingly named opening salvo "Kick in the Teeth" that much more potent. From its feedback and whomping kick drums to
Mjoell
's knife-edged vocals, it's the perfect expression of
's unapologetic stance.
are more confidently plain-spoken than ever before in calling out injustices, oppressors, and passive bystanders. That includes themselves and their listeners on "Who Do You Wanna Be?," a crash course in leftist politics and a reminder that actions speak louder than words with the urging refrain "If not you/Then who?/If not now/Then when?" Though they deliver advice with their trademark sense of humor on the
Bikini Kill
-esque "Hot (Don't Date a Musician)" -- which makes sure to include the "hot theys in bands" as well as the hot girls and boys -- it doesn't override the old-school punk feeling of calls to arms on
. Nowhere is this clearer than on the title track's churning litany of sexist moments big and small ("What's it like to be a woman in music, dear?/You'd never ask me that if you saw me as a peer") or on "Leech," a frank, harrowing takedown of music industry parasites that speaks for generations of female and non-binary artists when
implores "just have some fucking empathy" in a voice that's alternately infuriated and exhausted. Though
spends most of the album fighting the good fight, they round out
with love songs that pack just as much of a punch. The sweetly scuzzy romance of "Mascara" and innocent debauchery of "Curious" build on the flair for open-hearted guitar pop they showed on their last album, but "Honestly"'s seductive dream pop reveals entirely new realms of their sound. It's just another example of how
's success has made them the opposite of complacent: The more acclaim they get, the louder they shout about injustice and the farther they push their boundaries.
is the work of a band that believes music can actually make a difference, and in
's hands, it's a feeling that's contagious. ~ Heather Phares