Two Dancers

With only so many notes in the chromatic scale, the triumphs of countless artists preceding them and only one major release under their belts, such a momentous work of splendid art as Kendal indie eccentrics Wild Beasts have produced in Two Dancers was not a foregone conclusion.

Wild Beasts have a reputation as an acquired taste. Last year’s debut Limbo, Panto cemented the suggestion of their early singles that here was a band that is eccentric, ambitious and courageous, content to repel as many listeners as they win over. They created sinister, gaudy melodramas revolving around their British homeland, its romantics and its reprobates with a lurid poeticism of an almost Wildean ilk. They penned song titles like “Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants” and “She Purred While I Grrrred” and lyrics such as “My top’s off / I’m a goosepimpled god / upon my girth rests the earth / gonna give it what I’ve got”. Worse still for those on the wrong side of the fence, their lead singer was the proprietor of a wildly theatrical, gleefully unhinged falsetto which he was intent on flourishing recklessly at every opportunity. It is little surprise, then, that even amongst the critical applause Wild Beasts became renowned for Hayden Thorpe’s vocal chords over anything else. That is a shame, really, because Limbo, Panto can also proudly lay claim to some of the finest hooks of 2008, delivered with striking originality and depth and clarity that belied the youth of the Kendal-born, Leeds-based quartet.