I really, really, really like Wild Beasts. And, surprisingly, I find them much more listenable (or perhaps re-listenable) than yesterday’s Passion Pit. They were also definitely one of my highlights sweatin’ away just outside the John Peel tent at Glastonbury 2010.
However, this wasn’t always the way – and the first time I listened to “Two Dancers”, I was shocked, turned off and not wanting to hear more. That’s probably to do with the weird styling of “The Fun Powder Plot” or alternatively the octave-swooping voice of Hayden Thorpe, which both squawks and soars.
Goes to show that giving something your time and attention can do wonders.
Now, when I listen to the beginning of “Two Dancers” it’s the wordplay of “The Fun Powder Plot” which is instantly attractive – and I love Thorpe’s voice. It’s a brilliant, mythic, operatically huge way to start an album, complete with booty-calls and Freudian slips. And, miraculously, it just seems to get better.
“Hooting and Howling” is all about boys on the prowl – for life, love, something to amuse – and there’s something deeply sexy about the (slightly?) chauvinistic lyrics of “All the Kings Men”, in which Tom Fleming, the bassist, takes on lead vocals. Both songs seem to be about a journey; the first about the journey from animal to man, the second about the shape of a relationship: the control and lack of control, the sex, the appetite, the desire.
In fact, each song on the album takes us on a journey musically – instruments don’t sound like they’re meant to. In “When I’m Sleepy” and “Empty Nest” the guitar sounds bell-like, and the drums are played deep, deep down, primal, and without high-hats. Although, “We Still Got the Taste Dancin’ on Our Tongues” is as close to disco as you’ll get.
“Two Dancers” is atmospheric and spooky – like a cross between Twin Peaks and Interpol’s “Turn on the Bright Lights”. It’s full of jokes, puns and fooling about with words, which can be just as unsettling and spooky as the falsetto vocals. Songs don’t just arrive, they build and build: in “The Fun Powder Plot” the vocals don’t start until the 1.30 mark of the song.
There’s very strong imagery throughout of desire: it can be about sex or love or eating, and sometimes together. In the first “Two Dancers” (track 6), the lyrics ask “do you want my bones between your teeth”, which transforms into the “heart” by the part ii of the song. Bones and hearts take on their literal and metaphorical meanings – but it’s all about desire, letting go and controlling.
As well as desire, there’s a current of change running through the album, not least on the last track (if you don’t include the iTunes bonus) “Empty Nest”. The reverberating “going, going gone” intone how quickly things slip through our fingers.
I love it all: I love its dark, mellifluous tones and undertones, the way it plays with expectations and its sheer spookiness. I love how it changes with each listen and how it hits the gut, the heart and the head. Immense.
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