Limbo, Panto

Wild Beasts’ debut opens with the utterly disarming falsetto of frontman Hayden Thorpe soaring towards the heavens. It’s one of those moments where you go “Wait a minute, what the hell is this?", in a good way. It also helps that the opener ‘Vigil For A Fuddy Fuddy’ is a sultry, soulful, recherché torch ballad that slinks out of the speakers with a serpentine elegance. One song in and Wild Beasts will have won you over.
There’s a suitably feral feel to the Leeds-based quartet’s debut album. Thorpe’s voice, which at times resembles a more manic, unrestrained Antony Hegarty, strings the record together with its crazed oscillations from glass shattering peaks to guttural yelps to straight-up crooning. While on paper this may sound jarring, the effect on wax is the opposite, as his timbre seems to morph itself to suit whatever elegant adult–pop melody his bandmates have created for him.
Which is handy, because the album is crammed with memorable tunes. ‘The Devil’s Crayon’ and ‘Woebegone Wanderers’ are back-to-back studies in classic pop, driven by shimmering, supremely catchy guitar hooks. The punk-funk flavoured ‘Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyant’ chugs along with cheery effervescence, while ‘His Grinning Skull’ is another slice of sweeping pop grandeur.
The lyrics match the music with a wry, sprightly and poetic playfulness. The elegiac ‘Please Sir’ skews its initial earnestness with the couplet “Take these chips with cheese/As an offering of peace”, which is just a taste of the album’s arch word play. This is as clever, fun, and engaging a debut as you’ll hear all year.

Key Tracks: ‘The Devil’s Crayon’