Wild Beasts - Albatross

Wild Beasts galloped onto the music scene back in 2008 amidst an explosion of colour and cheap perfume - with their debut LP, ‘Limbo, Panto’ introducing us to a band steeped in glamorous vaudeville.

The intriguing spin beyond this bright, exotic music, however, came from what the Kendall band sung of. Football, fornicating - so elegantly delivered via front man Hayden Thorpe’s dizzy falsetto coo and Casanova lyricism (“I’m nothing more than a humble mongrel, whipped cast, rash and unabashed”) - their wholly laddish façade collided so beautifully with the contrastingly honky tonk, camp sounds of the LP.

Then arrived 2009‘s ‘Two Dancers’ - an album which showcased Wild Beasts’ development as a songwriters - their ears for rhythm tightened a notch. However, despite the new melodic maturity - alongside a notable dampening of eccentricity - the LP did not once sacrifice charm and remained a huge success amongst fans and critics alike.

Two years on and Wild Beasts plot their return with third LP, ‘Smothers’, which is set to hit shelves in May.

‘Albatross’ is the first woozy track to be unveiled from the forthcoming record. Lacking in the crude cabaret of early Beasts, the song instead continues the more sombre tones unveiled by sophomore album ‘Two Dancers’.

Those wonderful, olde worlde lyrical delicacies remain (“Albatross, how callous the ocean you cross. I blame you, for all of those things I‘ve been through. It’s my neck around which you hang, like a chain”), along with Thorpe’s expressive falsetto which chasses across the stage before being lushly carried in the arms of the contrast baritone of bassist Tom Fleming.

Layer on some haunting piano, melodic guitar and even some avante-garde electronics (the band have admitted the forthcoming LP is more “synth-based”) - and Wild Beasts succeed yet again in building an overtly sensual and unique soundscape to call their own.

Promising stuff.

Wild Beasts - Albatross by DominoRecordCo