Wild Beasts - Smother [Domino]

7.9

Smother. A very vivid verb whenever I think of it. I think of compression, suffocation, and other means of pressure. Though that imagery of Wild Beasts’ third LP Smother is dark and uncertain, light shines through in Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming’s voices. Looking back at the second album Wild Beasts put out in 2009, Two Dancers, Smother is more tamed, yet still has Wild Beasts’ primal tendencies to be sensual and being lewd. Smother is enjoyable, but still lacks a dynamical characterization that really blows Wild Beats into instant “classic” status.

Smother is a very percussive album. It really prides itself in its percussion, drums and anything deep. Every song on a deep backbone of a tom-tom fill that stays consistent with the rest of the song while quirky synths, guitar loops, and other non-percussive sounds make their way above the wildly consistent percussion, this intriguing idea creates this sense of being tamed while having the same wild tendency like a semi-tamed wild animal. It’s almost tribal the way Wild Beasts do it, “Deeper” has this chilling guitar line and wild piano inclusion in the midst all backed by this relatively simple beat that drummer Chris Talbot creates.

Even the lyrical word play of Fleming and Thorpe on most of the songs is very sexually inclined and has no limits. “I take you in the mouth/Like a lion takes his game,” Thorpe sings out on first track “Lion’s Share” instantly showing his lewd and semi-hilarious word play. Though Thorpe and Fleming share the mic on Smother, they are almost impossible to tell the difference between the two both having a very enticing falsetto that grips you into a false sense of calm while wild instrumentation takes you completely over.

Smother is simply about desire and burdens that Wild Beasts are carrying. “Albatross”, one of Smother’s definitive highlights paints the way for burdens and pain with lines like, “It’s my neck around which you hang”. Smother is definitely dark and can turn listeners off to their different approach of making creative music, but this heightens the listening experience of Smother. It simply expands on what Wild Beasts learned during Two Dancers and creates such a vivid experience of desire especially on the album closer “End Come Too Soon” with epic vocals cries from Thorpe.