The Beauty Of Wild Beasts' Smother

Wild Beasts have done it again with their new album. Smother is beautiful and crucially; original, how do they do it?

After their Mercury nomination for Two Dancers, the sky was the limit for Wild Beasts. On the verge of mainstream acceptance, despite their out-there tendencies, the band knew that one jump into the radio pool, through a single akin to Kings Of Leon's Sex On Fire, the most obvious recent example, would see them stars.

 

But as per Wild Beasts they haven't done so. Wholeheartedly sticking to their guns, the boys from Cumbria have made another album that can only be described as Wild Beasts.

This is not to say that you won't like it. Some of their more intricate and noodling musicianship most prevalent on their debut Limbo, Panto has been stripped back, revealing just the subtle piano and guitar lines that were underneath the whole time and giving the album a gentle, grandiose tone.

 

New single Albatross would usually be the first place to start, but Wild Beasts have never been a band that you can dip in and out of. 

 

The song, based on the creature from Coleridge's Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, is exceptional, Hayden Thorpe's love-it-or-hate-it falsetto drifting in and out as the beautiful piano and guitar swirl around him, but this album needs to be taken as a whole, ala Two Dancers.

 

Every track just melds into each other perfectly lulling the listener into a state of complete relaxation. Although this isn't necessarily the band's intention, it can't be denied that their style is utterly, beautifully, mesmeric.

As per usual the lyrics have a massive sexual leniance, describing the in's and out's of relationships much more intricately than the average 'I like her but she doesn't like me' chart topper.

Lead track Lion's Share is a clear example; "I take you in my mouth like a lion takes its prey" being an obvious standout.

Once again Wild Beasts have refused to compromise, and have created an album of beauty and imagination. Truly original, and building on their last two (yes, this is better than Two Dancers) the sky truly is the limit for these guys. Long may they continue to break the rules.