CD: Wild Beasts - Smother | reviews, news & interviews

CD: Wild Beasts - Smother

Ever more laid-back seductions from the Kendal quartet

by Joe MuggsThursday, 05 May 2011

Wild Beasts' 'Smother': Their third and most seductive album yet

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.

They superficially resemble some of the most melodramatic, showboating stadium rock bands, yet paradoxically manage to do so with utmost restraint

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