Wet Leg @ Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 27 May

If you consider yourself a new music fan, you’ll be no stranger to the meteoric rise of indie twosome Wet Leg. A lot has changed, though, since Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers formed the group against the jagged coastlines of the Isle of Wight. 2021’s megawatt single Chaise Longue propelled the pair into a relentless live circuit, eventually absorbing their touring live band into the fold. Sophomore release moisturizer finds Teasdale and Chambers co-writing with bassist Ellis Durand, guitarist Josh Mobaraki, and Henry Holmes on drums – and the songs are mightier for it.

Early record trailer catch these fists is a suckerpunch of a start. Teasdale, now with bleached eyebrows and dip-dyed blonde locks, strikes her best strongman pose, universes away from the pigtails and prairie dresses of their debut. Chambers remains set back from the spotlight, instead positioning herself and her pedal board off to the left of Holmes’ drum tier (the founding member suffers from anxiety and has likened fame to being on a "crash course in learning about myself."). While her presence is subdued, the hooks still dazzle as the three guitarists form a triple threat for Wet Dream, with no one missing a beat on that early doors hand clap. But, as Teasdale soothes, 'It’s enough to make a girl blush' while stomping around the stage in a pleated tennis skirt and half a T-shirt, you can’t help but think she’s the cause of the bashfulness now.

It’s an evolution she evokes in unreleased number mangetout, reflecting on repeat: 'You think I’m pretty / You think I’m pretty cool / You want to fuck me / Most people do'. Confident choruses aside, it’s evident that we’re being eased into something a little less silly and a lot more tender. Opening up on another moisturizer preview, she sings, 'My sweet baby angel / You’d know I’d do anything for you / It’s like a dream come true', like old-time balladeer Roy Orbison.

Wet Leg @ Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 27 May. Photo by Mert Kece

Support act, Katy J Pearson, gets a nod during a rare inter-song exchange. “She’s one of my favourite songwriters,” explains our frontwoman, and some of her crystalline country stylings have certainly entered the Wet Leg journals. At least, it will hush the naysayers on the vocalist's signature sprechgesang. Wonky antidote to small town inertia, Ur Mum, welcomes the whole auditorium into a hellraising scream before the added surf twang of Chaise Longue winds us towards the finish line with a hearty call and response as Teasdale enquires, 'Excuse me, Edinburgh?'

Not sure what a band like Wet Leg finishes with when they’ve already played their standout single? Thankfully, they unleashed a new one mere hours before our show. CPR ushers in the signature speaking swagger, but with some welcome Peter Gabriel pop theatrics. Teasdale picks up the receiver of a small analogue telephone that has appeared on a small kidney table at the front of the stage. 'Hello, 999. What’s your emergency?' She tentatively responds, 'I’m… I’m in love'. It’s safe to say our fondness is still intact, too.