Wild Beasts hold tight to their throne at Latitude 2015

It’s been a quiet year for Wild Beasts, their appearance at Latitude marking their only major UK festival appearance of the summer. It soon becomes clear why they made the effort to head to Suffolk amongst their preparation for album five.

“This is our sixth time at Latitude – no band has played it more,” states a freshly groomed Hayden Thorpe as the band take to the Obelisk stage – whether they booked in the date purely to break the record is up for debate, but there’s something magical about seeing a band who’ve grown with the setting they find themselves in this evening.

Last year’s criminally Mercury-lacking ‘Present Tense’ forms the crux of the set, an opening salvo of ‘Mecca’ through to ‘A Simple Beautiful Truth’ proving the record’s modern classic, and melting through every eclectic influence that makes Wild Beasts so impossible to pigeon-hole. ‘Hooting & Howling’, however, proves the early peak – a left-field singalong with a falsetto centrepiece that feels at home in Latitude’s boutique grounds.

By the time they get to their ode to ‘Wanderlust’ it becomes clear that no matter how far they roam, Wild Beasts have made a comfortable nest at Latitude. The arms held aloft for closer ‘All The King’s Men’ are their welcome embrace back to the fold.