Review Summary: Stop the Press as England belatedly births its first quality guitar band of the new millennium
I'll just come out and say what is on everyone's lips; Wild Beasts shouldn't make sense. Hayden Thorpe's vocals are flamboyant, flagrantly camp and he chooses to apply a deliberately twisted style to his vocals, challenging his audience as they flit between ugly and beautiful. As if these vocal eccentricities weren’t already risky enough the band’s lyrics just go right on ahead and commit the ultimate English guitar band taboo...for these Wild Beasts sing about [gasp] sex. And let’s be clear, we’re not talking about a laddish 'you're fit but don't you know it' cop out here either, these lyrics are just as brazen as Hayden’s singing style; it’s testament to this band's skill and charisma that they can carry off all this wilful perversity with swagger to spare.
There’s a certain predatory edge to these Wild Beasts, though think less your typical dunderhead ‘flex muscle/grab most inebriated girl in vicinity’ moves and more along the lines of smouldering glances and keen wits, like the rogues and casanovas of legend; this hard to nail down charm helps these boys no end. What also helps their cause is having a far more conventional second lead vocalist; in actual fact Tom Fleming sounds a lot like Guy Garvey of Elbow if you took twenty years off his voice and tempered his sad sacks curmudgeonly spirit. It would be a disservice to simply label Fleming the straight man in this partnership as his voice is plenty strong in its own right, displaying enough nuance and interest to carry a song equally well to Thorpe.
The music itself is well judged, never fighting to be heard above the vocals; gently repeating rhythms and guitar lines that are predominantly understated, never distractingly showy. The singing is so melodically detailed on 'Smother' there's really no need for similarly complex arrangements, the instruments sticking faithfully to their narrow remit of conjuring up a perfect backdrop of evocative and elemental textures; by way of comparison think back to the hushed and minimal musical landscape of Talk Talk's legendary 'Laughing Stock'.
This is very much the complete album, the consistency is commendable, but the Thorpe fronted duo of ‘Loop the Loop’ and ‘Albatross’ still manage to stand apart from the herd. It’s when listening to material of this calibre that the penny finally drops; what we have here is that rarest of things [drum roll please]...an English guitar band to truly believe in. Somebody pinch me, it’s been way too long.
