Crack

A reliably intriguing and progressively innovative band, Wild Beasts are arguably at their peak, and judging by the reaction of their triumphant performance at the Anson Rooms, they’ve won themselves a devoted fan base too.

Tonight Wild Beasts prove themselves to be a class act. They’re a proficient group of musicians and charming showmen. However, it’s Hayden Thorpe and Tom Flemming’s sublime vocal ability which places them head and shoulders above the average standard of British indie. Although its Thorpe’s unhinged falsetto that pierces its way to the the front of their sound, on stage Flemming reveals himself to be an equally as impressive vocalist. When he takes the lead position on songs like Deeper, his smoky baritone voice fills every corner of the venue.

Wild Beasts’ set largely rebuffs material from their first record Limbo, Panto. Although a debut of lofty ambition and amusing eccentricity, the cluttered instrumentation and heavy irony of Limbo, Panto obscured the band’s knack for restrained, subtle melody and their flamboyance sometimes felt a little forced. So it’s just as well that they focus on showcasing material from their most recent effort Smother and run through the many highlights of 2009’s Two Dancers.

When the band performs tracks from Smother, the tight and minimalistic arrangements create an intense atmosphere, dragging the audience to play voyeur to the unsettling narratives in the lyrics. Although songs like Lions Snare and Plaything explore themes of love and sex from the dark perspectives of ambiguously gendered characters, Wild Beast’s are way too cultivated to sink to the lows of Inbetweeners-style crudeness or shock-tactic insincerity. Having said that, during old favourite The Fun Powder Plot, when Thorpe sings: "This is a booty call, my boot, my boot, my boot, my boot up your arsehole," there’s a smirk on many of the faces in the crowd.

With the lyrical depictions of nihilistic violence and hedonism featured on Two Dancers, tonight those songs feel as though they have an eerie timeliness in the post-UK riot era. Perhaps the most euphoric moment of the evening is during the crescendo of Hooting and Howling, when the audience is prompted into a mass sing along subsided by synchronised handclapping as Thorpe sings: We're just brutes bored in our bovver boots/We're just brutes clowning 'round in cahoots/We're just brutes looking for shops to loot over a ghostly, melancholic riff. In this new context, the songs don’t stand as moral judgements, but it’s almost as if the contrast Wild Beasts achieve by blending such poignant music with lyrical expressions of adolescent machismo portrays emotional depth in the minds of the alienated youth.

The sole criticism is that on stage Wild Beasts perform some of their most refined and downbeat material too hastily, when maybe those songs should have been stripped and slowed down even further. But you can hardly blame them, it must be tricky to the pace steady when intoxicated by the adrenaline caused by playing to what was a fantastically zealous, boozy Saturday night crowd. And nevertheless, Crack was delighted to see them lapping up the appreciation they truly deserve.



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Words: David Reed

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