“Music isn’t the cure, it’s the remedy.”
Following their 2018 self-titled debut LP, and 2020’s sophomore record, So When You Gonna…, London-based trio Dream Wife – consisting of Rakel Mjöll on lead vocals, Alice Go on guitar/backing vocals, and Bella Podpadec on bass/backing vocals – are set to release their highly anticipated, riotous third record, Social Lubrication on 9th June via Lucky Number; a collection of playful, political punk with a lust for life. Entirely self-written and self-produced by Dream Wife and mixed by legendary duo Alan Moulder (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Killers, Depeche Mode) and Caesar Edmunds (Wet Leg, Beach House), Social Lubrication perfectly channels their live wire intensity into ten tracks of raw truth.
Opening with riot grrrl moxie, the infectious Bella bassline of ‘Kick in the Teeth’ (“I spent so much of this youth questioning my value / Lolita’s all grown up now, who knew?”) is followed by the scuzzy Alice Go Go Go riffs of ‘Who Do You Wanna Be?’. Rakel’s rebellious attitude screaming for increased collective action – away from soul-destroying “social media activism without action” – and decreased hyper-individualism. “Exhausted by the pressure to feel somewhat empowered / It’s only 8AM, and I haven’t even showered / Guess perseverance is the boldest thing one can do.”
‘Hot (Don’t Date a Musician)’ evokes the playfulness of CSS and the rock and roll grit of Motörhead. “Don’t date a musician / They’ll think your competition / I was never competition / I was just… hot” Rakel states, her on-the-nose humour backed up by a refusal to be reduced or intimated for being a woman who makes music. Title track’Social Lubrication’ flows in a similar vein, as the trio, exhausted, refuse to pander to patriarchal bullshit. Rakel delivers her spoken word verses with urgency across distorted garage guitar: “What’s it like to be a woman in music, dear? / You’d never ask me that if you regarded me as your peer.”
‘Mascara’ is a love letter to the mundane – but no less important – moments of life, and provides brief respite before Dream Wife are out for blood with ‘Leech’. Screaming for empathy and calling out double standards through frenetic fuzz (“Fuck those who call themselves a friend, but they don’t lift a finger! / Fuck that WhatsApp group where they got points for nailing a fresh-faced singer!”) before crescendo-ing into cathartic feedback. (“Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose.”)
‘I Want You’ and ‘Curious’ leave us lusting over Social Lubrication. the first is a filthy Be Your Own Pet-esque punk rocker, and the second is a hot bisexual/polyamorous anthem (“She loves you but she is curious about her love for me… / You’ll all be middle-aged men one day / And I’ll be a middle-aged Dream Wife”). Nostalgic for the early noughties, Dream Wife enter the stratosphere with the New Pony Club/Yeah Yeah Yeahs-inspired ‘Orbit’, closing Social Lubrication with a pulse-racing, disco-punk groove. It’s an unapologetic record that speaks to “systemic problems that cannot be glossed over by lube,” and that’s something we fully endorse at Get In Her Ears.
Pre-order your copy of Dream Wife’s new album Social Lubrication here
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Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne
Photo Credit: Sophie Webster
Get In Her Ears 