another live member, Katie Harkin from accomplished Leeds popsters Sky Larkin.
“Thing about Katie is she’s a friend of ours first and foremost and also, we came up together as bands in Leeds and it was more important to have someone we knew and who understood where we’re coming from,” explains Tom. “It’s fair to say we pride ourselves on being able to (play everything live). Putting it in simple terms, when we talk about how to play the record live we can never just press play. Everything has to be responsive to our touch, be that
Smother represents the same bravery, experimental ideals and eccentric motivation that has driven the finest guitar-pop since the post-punk explosion of 1979 onwards.
instrument or software or whatever. Live you can rely on the directness, that human one-to-one scenario. You can also rely on the volume.” Wild Beasts have already impressed many with their ethereal live performances, where the direct effectiveness of using space and sparsity in their music really comes across. Smother’s throbs, echoes and eerie refrains – sweet nothings on the wind – have been difficult for the band to replicate at their rehearsals of late, though they note that a breakthrough has been made, meaning this haunting material will be out in full force in this year’s sets. Drummer Chris Talbot details the hard times: “We’ve been leaping over quite a few hurdles in the last couple of weeks. It’s started to come to fruition. We’ve got eight songs that we can play live now off the record. You have to embrace certain parts of technology that when you started out, you weren’t particularly OK with thinking about; like pressing or triggering something. It’s getting used to that and using it to our advantage. When we’re playing live
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we’re trying to recreate the atmospherics of the record (which) you just can’t do with four people. It’s a very precise record in how people hear it. We want to recreate that live.”
The contradictions ring aloud: they’ve kept it simple, yet require an extra pair of hands; they’ve learned so much but are lacking knowledge; they’ve moved to London and Smother, says Hayden, “was written in the city but pulls away into more ethereal
landscapes...the more drawn we get to living in London, to me it feels more descriptive of the landscape we grew up on.“ So fresh from their touring of their second record, with nary a break to
recover, their third album was written and recorded, is being rehearsed and will be played out on the road by the time you’re reading this. There doesn’t seem to be any fear of burnout or slowing down. If anything that lustre seems as powerful as ever and it’s the bare-faced honesty of these four men behind the majesty that helps convince – if it was needed – that Wild Beasts are a serious concern. Smother represents the same bravery, experimental ideals and eccentric motivation that has driven the finest guitar-based pop since the post- punk test explosions of 1979 onwards. But it only really makes a difference if we’re all listening. To fully get to grips
with Wild Beasts the listener needs to be fully engaged, open to the band’s bold sonic explorations and melodies, free of distraction. We need bands like Wild Beasts to show us that the widely abandoned label practices of allowing a group to develop over time is often far more exciting than the firecracker debut. The band agrees that they are rapidly turning into the band that they claim they were “always meant to be”. It means that scoring a third chance to demonstrate this after such a clamorous introduction – and rewarding our trust with their second offering – they are bucking the trend of fiery young bands either diving headfirst into middle age or simply imploding before any potential is fulfilled, let alone properly recognised. “The more we go on, the more we feel empowered by the fact that people
are listening so we can communicate with them in a more direct way,” says Hayden. “Previously we’ve had to take a sledgehammer to the door and now we can be a bit more composed.“ Though woe betide if this composure is ever shawn of its underlying mischievousness. PM
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