With their Debut album premiering at festivals throughout the land, and a launch party at Hoxton hall almost upon us, I thought I’d indulge Wild Beasts with some words on their music… Linked is an in depth review of their last album, for those of you who weren’t quite as obsessed by it as I was, and of course we must indulge in a sneak preview of the forthcoming record (which is unbelievably excellent) via their new single 'hooting and howling'.

Stormers on the new album include ‘the fun powder plot’ whose title immediately shows us that the boys from up north haven’t lost their love of puns, and is a beautiful introduction to the more majestic and lulled style that the beasts have taken on, while ‘all the kings men’ sees bassist Tom Fleming on lead vocals still bearing the torch of obscure masculinity by waxing Byronic on the subject of women and lavish living. Not lost are the jazzy guitars and eccentric drumming, but gained is a melancholy that floats within the music and voices that is not sad, but not necessarily overjoyed. Wild Beasts first staggered us with a sound more inventive and mature than ever we had heard, and where rewarded. Now it seems that they have grown and wisened, and are incomparable as a result, pre order ‘Two Dancers’, and get it on vinyl, for the warmest, most richly British and brilliant record of this year.

            Wild Beasts, a band who derive their name from the ‘Fauves’, a group of artists whose name translates into that of the poperatic boys from Kendall, have been rather the talk of the year. Signed by musical barons of genius-to-come Domino, the release of ‘Limbo Panto’, the debut LP, was long awaited by a legion of learned fans and seasoned admirers, garnering reviews from around the journalistic spectrum. However it seems that these writings tend only to muse upon lead singer Hayden Thorpe’s vocal acrobatics, which have become the band’s main selling point from a literary point of view. While the baritone and alto love affair between Thorpe and bassist Tom Fleming, backed up by drummer Chris Talbot, is a soaring triumph of the male voice, a musician can find equally massive originality in their instrumental work, just as the poet can in the lyrics.

            Basing such vocal layering on a rather more rhythmical musical background serves to deliver one of the band’s many contrasting factors, but of course it works a treat; while voices warble their dizzyingly unintelligible lines, the rhythm section remain staunchly unmovable in keeping their clatter in time, resulting in some spectacularly original pop tunes; the likes of single ‘the Devil’s Crayon’ provoking cowbell induced dancing while ‘his Grinning Skull’ is a more haunting melancholy affair. Talbot manages to find a way around settling for generic 4/4 drum patterns, while extra percussion on the record serves to compliment piano lines with a solid but expressively jazzy sound, much like an updated Edith Piaf session band.

            Lyrically, the boys are unmatched in music today. Many listeners have commented on the unfathomable way that Wild Beasts manage to sing like choir boys, yet convey a definite, gravely realism, that reeks of nostalgia and lets their records resist any attempted pigeon-holing. The answer lies in their lyrics and it is no wonder that the words are so excellent; we may be dealing with obscure art-history knowledge from the outset with the band’s name, but ’Wild Beasts’ they are, and whilst the singing is operatic, the music genial, and the wordplay divine, these northern lads still manage to write songs about football and being expelled from school alongside those on human nature and the beauty of sex. Whilst mourning the collapse of a football team, Thorpe interjects, ‘Please be wary, the pit of a man’s heart is dark and scary’, hinting that the songs that seem perhaps less intellectually stimulating than others are possibly exemplary of a wider idea; football song, or essay on man’s basic passions? ‘Though the meat, was fleshy and sweet, she purred while I grrred…’ surely an animalistic description of fellatio, but this most genuinely romantic and innocent depiction of such a barbarous act lies in ‘She purred while I grrred’, a song whose subject of carnal indulgence is perfectly accompanied by its warm and sultry guitars, adequately jarred by Talbot’s cymbal bell interruptions. The poetic love of phonetics, resulting in assonances, rhymes and alliterations uncountable, gives a rhythmical repetition to syllables in the lyrics that mirror the rhythmical expertise of the band, but do not hamper the vocalists in breaking from the songs’ structure, as many bands are guilty of.

            With so many separate factors combining to form their music, Wild Beasts are a band of contradictions and contrasts. Some have been mentioned, like the grittiness of the songs despite angelic vocals and musicianship, which owes itself to Thorpe cracking and bending his voice, making the passion of the subject so much more genuine, a Baroque affeti in a modern pop context. In a way it is these seemingly opposing ideas within the music that makes the chaps a perfect exemplar for modern music, somehow developing without compromise, the different elements that make a good pop song; they possess uncanny musical understanding, crafting songs that have undeniable flair, but an equally irresistible catchiness that many would say is the key to such tunes. Such musical ability is towered over by the vocal mastery that catches so many off guard on first listen, but nonetheless becomes pleasantly infective on further hearing, which is the vehicle for excellent poetry that tells of great understanding and experience, rather than conforming to clichéd song subjects as so many do at present. The different elements of Wild Beast’s repertoire combine to serve a deliciously warm but never comfortable slice of life; one empathises with clumsy inexperience in ‘Vigil for a Fuddy Duddy’, and can understand the hopeless desperation of ‘Please Sir’, while all that is good about the band is summed up in ‘the Club of Fathomless Love’ as being ‘so full with fierce, fathomless love’ yet it ‘spits and has spats to be tough’. The romance of the music and vocals as contradicted by the raw subjects seems to be a resounding theme for the band, as ‘man, to be man, must love and pity, so deeply and secretly.’