Smother (Domino)

Back in 2008, English dandies Wild Beasts unleashed their feral debut Limbo, Panto, an album that wildly wove art rock and carnival music around leader Hayden Thorpe’s sexually charged falsetto. The group’s sophomore set, Two Dancers, saw the troupe slowing things down substantially, although its romantic rhythms still commingled with Thorpe’s nether-regions obsession. Wild Beasts keeps up the amorous antics on their latest disc, Smother.

A supremely minimalist ballad of skeletal piano tinkles and wobbly synth bass, the opener, “Lion’s Share”, is as delicate and gorgeous as anything on Two Dancers. The tune finds Thorpe calling out to his lover, but for the first time, his lyrics get borderline creepy; it’s hard to tell whether his soft “I wait until you’re woozy/I lay low until you’re lame/I take you in my mouth like a lion takes his game” is ultra-passionate, over-protective, or eerily predatory. Fortunately, he redeems himself on the electronic-percussion-laden (not to mention Frankenstein-referencing) “Bed of Nails.” Meanwhile, bassist Tom Fleming’s vocal turn on the streamlined coffeeshop-pop number “Deeper” has him tenderly awaiting his love at the breakfast table.

Judging by this latest batch of soft rockers, the Wild Beasts moniker is becoming a bit of a misnomer, as tracks like “Loop the Loop” and the epic closer “End Come Soon” tread closer to Coldplay-style AOR than, say, Frog Eyes. “Burning” does, however, take the band into a brave new direction. Built around sparse marimba hits and glitched-out soundscapes, the Fleming-sung tune may technically be the gentlest of the bunch, but it’s also the most out-there track on Smother.

In fact, “Burning” proves Wild Beasts need to spice up their lives a bit. As heartbreaking as it is to admit it, there’s more to life than romance.