For a while it looked like Wild Beasts were going to explode the horribly moribund UK indie scene, but now with their album, Limbo, Panto, in the shops, the prospect that this most extraordinary of young bands might be a catalyst for some kind of revolution where originality and weirdness is what sells, seems to have faded. Like Y2K, I woke up and everything was the same.

They are utterly different. The ingredients that make them so are Hayden Thorpe’s falsetto howl, the Alan Bennett crossed with Morrissey lyrics and the ringing guitar sound achieved by Ben Little. Everything that is great about his quartet of northerners (yes! Northerners! How quaint!) is encapsulated in ‘Cheerio Chaps’ and ‘Old Dog’, which shows a natural melodic talent that was slightly drowned out by the claustrophobic intimacy of this small basement in Kings Cross. That said, the sound was perfect, as this is not a band who need volume to make their point – they are all about the subtleties.

Their camaraderie is clear, as is their instrumental competence and confidence in their own brand of ‘literate Englishness’. The good, Noel Coward/Spike Milligan sort though, rather than Ken Dodd/Arctic Monkeys cringe-fests.
Fashion-watch: Thorpe has forsaken his rather fetching Terry Thomas moustache, and is now donning what look like hunting shorts. Outstanding.

Barnaby Smith
Photo: Rachel Lipsitz