Wild Beasts - Get My Bang

Wild Beasts have always wrestled with a masculinity crisis and shifting identity, every move sprinkled with sleaze. But their previous two records - career highlight ‘Present Tense’ and the sleepy-eyed ‘Smother’ - never hinted at a song like ‘Get My Bang’ being in their locker.

If anything, the first take from ‘Boy King’ has more in common with the theatrical growls of 2008 debut ‘Limbo, Panto’. On that record, Hayden Thorpe led with a Draconian fever, lusty cries packing a razor-sharp edge. The same mentality can be found here, but it’s been reinterpreted into an uptight, vicious synth track. A stop-start lead melody sounds like it’s a hound jumping hurdles, and Thorpe’s in peak seedy form. “No getting it wrong, no getting it wrong / Just getting it on,” he barks between breathy growls. Never have Wild Beasts sounded this love-ravaged and swerved by their own instincts.

There’s even room for a showy, intentionally disjointed guitar solo. And just when Wild Beasts looked to have covered all bases across a diamond-encrusted career, they’ve hit a new high. Staggeringly, they’ve found another way to reinvent the wheel. Just watch out for Hayden. He seems to have grown actual fangs.