Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wild Beasts - A Rush and a Push and the land will be there's, 21 Aug 2009
Like others I was pointed towards this album by the ecstatic review in the Sunday Times where Dan Cairns described it as a masterpiece - "A Mephistophelean melodrama, a night on the tiles, a lawless rabble of marauding ne'er-do-wells painting the town red with real blood and Kensington Gore". I went on holidays a few days later and the whole of this album now makes up the bulk of the "25 most played" songs on my I Pod.
Not that I was immediately drawn in by its charms. Indeed I badly misjudged this album for a fair number of listens. It all seemed rather eccentric, fey and ambiguous. A bit too much Anthony Blanche and not enough Charles Ryder. Was this yet another Smiths obsessed band spending far too much time reading Byron and Shelley? Is that the sound of Sparks that echoes through "Woebegone Wanderers" on their previous album which was the first song I ever listened to by the band? Again on the new album "We still got the taste dancing on our tongues" was another culprit that I detested (but now recognise as one the best on the album). The reason was probably Hayden Thorpe's voice and it certainly it will not be to everyone's tastes. The more you listen however to Thorpe's voice you note that it is not that much different from the great Billy McKenzie of the Associates albeit at a higher falsetto level, you can also throw Jeff Buckley into this mix and even Bono circa Achtung Baby ( a compliment as its the one U2 record that should be in every collection) . Listen to his vocal on "This is out lot" an outstanding performance which is simultaneously restrained and wild. Equally throughout his lyrics are infused with intelligence and wit not seen since Morrissey
Thorpe shares vocals with the brilliant Tom Fleming who clearly is more accessible as a singer but sometimes not as interesting as Thorpe. The balance between the two is damn near perfect. Any ways forget the debate about Hayden Thorpe vs. Tom Fleming vocals; both singers contribute to the best British album in ages. Indeed one could argue that the real star is actually Ben Little surely the best new British guitarist since either Johnny Greenwood or Johnny Marr?
Check out the accessible tracks first. "All the Kings men" with its call to "Girls from Roedean, girls from Shipley, girls from Hounslow, girls from Whitby," Check out the wonderful Hooting and Howling watery video on You Tube and some of the nice mixes of the song on the net. And yes sell your worldly processions to get the sultry "We still got the taste dancing on our tongues". Finally Fleming's vocal on the electro sounding Two Dancers 1 is a joy. I could go on.....
I sense that Two Dancers will do for the Wild Beasts what "The Bends" did for Radiohead, it is that good. Limbo Panto like Pablo honey was not quite premier division. Two Dancers is Real Madrid in comparison. It is by any standards a truly audacious sophomore album and signals the arrival of a British band that stand apart from some of the crushingly indifferent indie music circulating at present. A band that truly graces this sceptred isle.
|
|
|
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Where the wild things are (8.5/10), 26 Jul 2009
On their first album `Limbo Panto' Wild Beasts got painted by some as peddlers of a contrived English eccentricity that was unfashionably arch, all barbershop harmonies and old world camp. While many were turned off by their falsetto front man Hayden Thorpe, whose gymnastic vocals always seemed to be accompanied in print with the disclaimer `deal-breaker', a militant few argued that they were the modern heirs to The Smiths. The similarities are evident, Wild Beasts sing about modern Britain - chip shops and glottal stops - with a elegiac but humourous eye, while their sound is informed by the 1980s `Brit jangle' of Morrissey and co. Very much a love it or hate it proposition, one could have been forgiven for doubting Wild Beasts' chances of longevity in Britain's faddish new music landscape. On `Two Dancers', however, they will surely silence the doubters, having smoothed down some of the rougher edges without sacrificing their oddball spirit. The falsetto is still there; tempered perhaps, but as much by tighter song structures than a reigning-in of their musical personality.
For listeners braced for pantomime histrionics, the album begins in quite low-key fashion. The jangling guitars and synth washes on the gently propulsive `The Fun Powder Plot' and `Hooting and Howling' recall New Order, although the vocals on the latter have the more fragile register of Antony Hegarty. Neither title quite prepares for the lush, elegant and expansive pop within, which in turn belies the wackier lyrics. "This is a booty call ... my boot, my boot your arsehole!` coos Thorpe on the ridiculously monikered opener - a song that is more malice than mockery. Likewise, `Hooting and Howling' seems to bemoan thuggish behaviour with a Morrissey-esque, outsider melancholy. This is not four-square, meat and potatoes rock (i.e., it sounds nothing like Oasis): there is a lot of space in the mix, the music awakens gracefully and evolves in a watercolour blur that also recalls Cocteau Twins.
`All The King's Men' picks things up considerably and is both one of the albums catchiest songs and the most obvious distillation of the Beasts sound: marching rhthms, arch lyrics, modern British reference points. Deeper-voiced Bassist Tom Fleming takes the lead, with a tongue-in-cheek roll call to "Girls from Shipley ... girls from Hounslow ... girls who need me ... girls who feed me", that is both funny and sinister. Equally brilliant is the lush, epic pop of `We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues', an elegy to youth and adventure that can stay in the head for days and has more than just a hint of early U2 in its choppy, shimmering guitars.
The two-part title track, fronted again by Tom Fleming, is more mournful and thus less immediate, but still instrumentally rich, with Thorpe underlining Fleming's vocals with little falsetto flutters on the world-weary reprise. The propulsive Peter Hook bass of `This is Our Lot' doesn't really stop the feeling of the album's slow descent into more sombre, achingly nostalgic moods on the second part of the album. This sense is only offset by the more redemptive - in atmosphere at least - `The Empty Nest': a sashaying, dovetailing journey home that again encapsulates Wild Beasts yearning, romantic charm.
Overall, `Two Dancers' is a satisfying, beguiling record that takes a number of listens to fully bed in. The sensual, appropriately dreamy `When I'm Sleepy' and the twilight ghostliness of `Underbelly' provide impressionistic interludes to counterpoint the more epic tracks elsewhere. Surely one of the year's best albums by a British band, `Two Dancers' has the blend of invention and pop sensibility that seems to have been largely lacking on this side of the Atlantic in recent years. The revolution starts here. First published at The Line of Best Fit.
|
|
|
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Worm In The Rose, 5 Aug 2009
A very rich confection this.
A veritable Patissere Valerie custard doughnut of an album !
(Eat one and you want at least another half-dozen,
whatever the cost to heart and health).
'Two Dancers' is a fine collection of eleven well-crafted
and intelligent left-of-centre pop songs.
Hayden Thorpe's louche falsetto is a highly aquired taste but
there is no doubt that its quirky individuality drives the
material along with uncompromisingly exotic gusto.
The wild wobbly whoops on 'All The King's Men' are hillarious !
(Whether or not this was his intention I am uncertain).
There is something uneasy and dark in the general
compositional style which is both intellectually
satisfying and strangely affecting at times.
'We Still Got The Taste Dancin' On Our Tongues', with
its chiming guitars and extraordinary central vocal
performance is a particularly good example.
'Underbelly' is one of the strangest and most creepily
beguiling compositions I have heard so-far this year.
The song leaves a faint scent of corruption in its wake.
One can imagine that Mr Thorpe never goes anywhere
without a copy of Baudelaire's 'Les Fleurs Du Mal'
tucked tightly and discreetly in his back pocket.
Messrs Little (Guitar), Talbot (Drums) and Fleming (Bass)
are a tight and musically competent ensemble who labour
selflessly in their efforts to create and sustain highly
decorative and atmospheric frames for their master's wayward muse.
Final track 'Through The Iron Gate' delivers a powerful conclusion.
A wide-screen, technicolor song. Epic in its singular vision.
An unpredictable sonic construction, vibrantly performed.
An eccentric curiosity worthy of our attention and appreciation.
It really does leave quite a peculiar taste behind on the tongue.
Divine decadence indeed !
Highly Recommended.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
