Wild Beasts - Celestial Creatures

On the hottest day of the year, the Sun God / sunbed-session-gone-a-bit-too-far bloke who adorns Wild Beasts’ ‘Boy King’ cover art makes a lot more sense. With similar apropos, he also looks like one of those ‘Celestial Creatures’ Hayden Thorpe and co rattle on about in their latest track.

The jump-off point for their new album, ‘Celestial Creatures’ finds Wild Beasts trading in the same melancholy-drenched synthwork that defined 2014 album ‘Present Tense’. Only like the rest of ‘Boy King’, the melodrama is counteracted with uptight, dagger-like production. Like with St. Vincent’s 2013, self-titled game changer, producer John Congleton has injected some much-needed vibe. In one sense, it’s the band’s way of evolving from one form to another. But it also embodies the hyper-masculine subject matter they’ve obsessed with since day one.