Weekly Album Review: Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
Written by garrettbrown on Tuesday, 8 of September , 2009 at 2:54 pm
When the album’s first guitar riff begins in “The Fun Powder Plot”, I suddenly feel transported into a glorious jungle where trees shoot up hundreds of feet into the non-visible sky and the only thing guiding my path are the few scattered rays of light that managed to shine through the canopy. In other words, it’s fantastic. Two Dancers is the Wild Beasts second LP, after 2008′s Limbo, Panto. Wild Beasts hail from Kendal, England and have fours members: Hayden Thorpe the guitar/vocals man who provides that falsetto voice that put Thom Yorke to shame, Ben Little on guitar, Tom Fleming on bass, and Chris Talbot on those spectacular tribal sounding drums. Two Dancers comes out today on the wonderful Domino Records.
After the first track finishes and you want to think to yourself “that was a really unique song and I loved it”, the album’s first single “Hooting & Howling” starts with a Freddy Mercury-like note that immediately grabs your attention and makes you completely abandon the previous thought that filled your brain. Have you ever been with a group of friends and you are all playing your respective instrument together at different times and none of you really know what you’re doing but then suddenly, as if all of your minds were melded into one glorious song-crafting creation, what you are all playing suddenly comes together and sounds beautiful for a few seconds and then vanishes when you all stop and acknowledge the beauty of that moment? This song reminds me of that one moment, extended over 4 minutes and 35 seconds of victorious glory. This song also provides a line, “we’re just brutes”, where you hear Hayden’s voice suddenly change from the graceful falsetto into a violent, raw, guttural scream that lets you know he means every word he says. This first single of the album is appropriately chosen as a song that will be remembered for a long time to come.
The next track “All The Kings Men” opens with a strong pop-rock sounding drum line that seems to stray from the album’s general sound. Then the guitar comes in, adding a slightly darker sound to the song. Then finally you hear the Battles like chanting and remember why you fell in love with this band after only three songs. The combination of relative musical complexity and a sound that manages to stay catchy like any good pop song leads to the third solid song on the album.
Fast forward to track 5, “We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues”, which begins with a sort of falsetto, feral moaning that listener are almost forced to imitate upon hearing it. The Congo drum adds a whole new dimension to the track that trots along slowly like a horse. The same drum is predominate in another favorite track of mine “This Is Our Lot”. Although this song seems very standard every time I try to dissect it, with a steady guitar, bass, and drum line the whole way through, something seems to attract it to my memory like butter on toast. This album seems to constantly be calling up imagery of animals and jungles and landscapes that can only make me think how accurately named this band really is.
You can buy the album right here (LP or CD).
Wild Beasts- Hooting & Howling
Wild Beasts- All The King’s Men
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