There's no doubt about it, Hayden Thorpe has the most manly falsetto in modern music. It's not the wheedling whine of the post-Radiohead generation of indie sadsacks, nor the haunted and haunting quaver of an Anthony Hegarty, nor yet the introspective musing of a James Blake. Rather it's a completely assured and controlled instrument, comparable only to the intense wail of the late Billy McKenzie (The Associates). And it's just one of the entirely distinctive features of the sound of Wild Beasts – a band who seemingly operate unbound by scene or genre dictates and are, ironically, all the cooler for it.
The four young blades from the Lake District have also broken the rules of hype by emerging gradually, growing into their sound and accumulating a following album by album. This, their third, is easily their most confident yet, further incorporating minimal keyboard lines and the structures of dance music into their compositions to create an elegant pulse on which Thorpe and his foil Tom Fleming's tales of seduction and derring-do are borne along. One particularly fascinating element of Wild Beasts is the way they sonically superficially resemble some of the most melodramatic, showboating stadium rock bands – the chiming guitars of U2, Muse's high camp with an edge of mania – yet paradoxically manage to do so with utmost restraint.
They may never reach stadium level themselves – that restraint in itself, along with their refusal to play the genre game, could easily mean that they remain a cult concern. But their last album, Two Dancers, crept up gradually into a wide range of people's playlists, and laid-back though it may be, this one may yet prove to be more seductive still. In an age of neurosis and panic, it's extremely gratifying to hear a band so obviously comfortable with who and what they are – doubly so when they are so distinctive and gloriously strange.
Buy tickets for Wild Beasts on tour until 13 MayWatch the video for "Albatross" from Smother
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