Wild Beasts - 'Two Dancers' (Domino) Released 03/08/09

Wild Beasts aren’t just all about one, opinion-dividing vocalist. Hayden Thorpe is, as of now, the best songwriter still writing songs. His tongue-twisting, head-spinning couplets mirror the beauty of some of Morrissey’s finest works, especially when you consider the daft but brilliant use of wit both excel in. But he leaves a casual-listener for dead. ‘Limbo, Panto’ will forever remain suitably understated, left be to shake and shimmy in its own comfort whilst others read the warning signs. Thorpe’s unique, affecting falsetto is high-pitched, wandering, irritating for some. The emergence of  Tom Fleming, a more husky, masculine figure, as a co-vocalist isn’t a move by the band to lure in the skeptics. It just merely compliments this warm, luscious and significantly lust-filled second album.

The ‘Two Dancers' title seems to play copycat with Bat For Lashes’ latest, ‘Two Suns’. Both, at least seem to, metaphorically represent the idea of two people being more powerful than just solids when it comes to the abstract sense of love. But whilst Natasha Kahn’s latest dithered in a philosophical, deep journey of natural, spiritual love and power, Wild Beasts seem more content on listing “girls from Roedean, girls from Shipley, girls from Hounslow, girls from Whitby”. They adopt the persona of a Lothario, one who seeks sex casually but seriously. Pants, hisses and deep inhaling, combined with the drastically deep and drastically high tones from the three vocalists, make for an unlikely but fruitful and dare I say it, sexy album.

Think the sexual references in Shakespeare, through each and every one of these references to “dancing cock”(s), “down by his knees” or how “trousers and blouses make excellent sheets, down dimly lit streets”, the band remain polite, humorous in their sexual wit. Maybe its the beauty in the deliverance of such lines, from the head-bopping, dance-around-the-table joy of ‘All The Kings Men’ to the melancholic, shy but anthemic ‘We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues’. The four-piece have indeed experimented with lust and pleasure with similar style in ‘She Purred While I Grrred’, but on this record, we’re just treated to one, coherent wall of intimate, steamy atmosphere.

You can bask in the nature of the album’s theme, get hot under the collar and get lost in the moment however you please. But at one point you’ll end up appreciating the music attributes of the record more than anything else. The fantastic transformation of the title track, part one an epic, post-rock ballad of sorts, part two an R&B-inspired, down and defeated attack on a relationship, is just one example of ‘Two Dancers” sheer magnitude and guts. Boasting one of the best rhythm sections around in opener ‘The Fun Powder Plot’ and even urging a singalong or two in ‘Hooting & Howling’, the album remains reverb-soaked to the socks, priding itself on smart percussion and those vocals. The mix of both Fleming and Thorpe as two vocalists putting on their own, unique show, is what makes ‘Two Dancers’ turn into the whole package. A dancer in their own right, unlike in ‘Limbo,Panto’, neither should be able to ward off a passer-by who’s just curious this time round. Instead, they’ll find themselves embracing this sonic attack, this divine appreciation of the joys of sex and seeking them.