Wild Beasts

Add Date: June 7 

Artist: Wild Beasts 

Album: Smother 

Label: Domino 

Genre: Rock, pop 

Comments: It's a late arrival--the record came out four weeks ago--but we finally have our hands on Wild Beasts' LP Smother. From the promoter: "Smother is the sinister, slower-moving third album from England's Wild Beasts. Although it is darker and has a more tranquil quality than the band's previous releases, Smother maintains Wild Beasts' signature elements, such as frontman Hayden Thorpe's falsetto vocals, and [Chris Talbot's] hypnotic, looping drums."

Another fine effort from one of rock's semi-hidden gems. Wild Beasts' sound is delightfully tough to pin down, but imagine Phoenix's breezy, keyboard-based pop stretched into a slower, more deliberate tempo, crossed with Grizzly Bear's song structures--and, again, all tied together by Thorpe's aforementioned falsetto--and you'll get pretty close to Smother. Or you could stop imagining and just listen, starting with tracks 7, 8, 4 and 2.