Where the Wild Beasts are

Here’s a tip for music journos applying psychoanalytic missives to literate indie quartet Wild Beasts: don’t bother, especially if you’re going to take the direct approach.

Just as Sigmund Freud wouldn’t have gotten far introducing the Oedipus complex to Viennese aristocracy by postulating their mothers to be "incestuous slags", the notion that the Cumbrian foursome’s musical palate brims with psychosexual tension, while not entirely refuted by guitarist Benny Little, isn’t received with much enthusiasm either.

We’re sitting in a dark, cramped booth in the cavernous bowels of Cabaret Voltaire as Wild Beasts prepare for a gig to promote sophomore album Two Dancers. Little, joined by drummer Chris Talbot, largely swerves Freudian discourse, preferring to couch the band’s themes of sensuality and carnal desire in more straightforward terms.

“I think for Hayden [Thorpe] and Tommy [Fleming] specifically they kind of touch upon those taboos, and that’s what they find most exciting, y’know, the things that don’t really get said in pop music. They can be sexy without saying ‘here’s a pair of tits’.”

Citing Junior Boys and The Knife as acts that inform their listening habits, Two Dancers represents a continuation of Wild Beasts’ appreciation of libidinous tempo, eschewing comparison to artists that may find themselves on the radar of the Radio 1 playlist, which Talbot is moved to call “an abomination”. He also has harsh words for the listening habits of others, particularly where the phenomenon of ‘lad rock’ is concerned.

“It’s always fascinated us as well, those laddy bands...[and why] they’re so popular; I mean, we’ve got nothing against it...but it’s always fascinated us why people don’t search for a little bit more depth.”

The palpable sense of resignation resonates beyond the archetypal whinge against the major label machine - an argument strengthened by Talbot’s observation that “it took Animal Collective nine albums for people to come round to their music” - but above all, Little expresses a bemusement at some of the perceptions that have been put upon the band.

“When you get called wacky and crazy, like Hayden’s voice for example, and people kinda think we’re doing it just to shock people; it does have that effect, but at the same time it’s very natural.”

Little, alluding to frontman Hayden Thorpe’s feral falsetto howl, saves me the job of touching on the subject of the singer’s divisive vocals.

“That’s the way Hayden uses melody. From a very early age, we’ve grown up and all formed together, so it feels very natural, and when people comment on it and say negative things, it is very hurtful.”

Despite the effervescence of Thorpe’s timbre, not to mention the full-on explicitness of songs that cover themes as broad as anti-social behaviour ('Hooting & Howling'), sexual assault ('Two Dancers') and one-night stands ('We Still Got The Taste Dancin On Our Tongues'), Little insists that Wild Beasts are, well, not as wild as they could be.

Referring to the baroque melodrama of 'Two Dancers (i)', Little comments: “We were quite indulgent in the sonics, it’s pretty over the top. We let ourselves go with that one, we just thought ‘fuck it’, cause a lot of the time we don’t let ourselves go... musically we thought ‘this is a bit taboo playing this, a bit over the top; a bit OTT.’”

Inhibition isn’t a trait you’d readily associate with Wild Beasts. If they are indeed holding back, you sense that it’s more out of discipline than anxiety, such is the assuredness with which they’ve subverted the sophomore jinx that befalls so many others. So what now? What do the Cumbria quartet aim to achieve from here?

“...release as many albums [as possible]... I just hope we make more albums and people will latch onto it.”

Little's answer betrays a hint that Wild Beasts, if resolutely unique in aesthetic, hanker for appreciation like any other band – even, whisper it, that abominable Radio 1 lot.

The Journal (this article was amended)