Number My Babies

Wild Beasts @ Union Pool 9/11/2009

This Is Our Lot / All The King’s Men / The Devil’s Crayon / We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues / The Fun Powder Plot / His Grinning Skull / Please Sir / Hooting and Hollering / Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants / The Empty Nest

Wild Beasts “All The King’s Men”

I’ve been listening to the Wild Beasts for a few years now and in that time I had focused so much of my attention on the vocals that it never occurred to me just how much they emphasized their rhythm section in their compositions. This is very hard to miss when watching them in concert. For one thing, their drummer is just astounding — he’s freakishly nimble and highly adept at playing detailed rhythm patterns without calling attention to himself or distracting from the melodies. In most cases, the lead singer of a selection is the one playing the bass, which serves as the primary instrument, unlike most rock bands, for whom that instrument would most certainly be a rhythm guitar. This leads me to believe that the songs are being written from the bass up, which could explain both their melodic richness, and their taste for leaving a lot of open space in their arrangements to place an emphasis on the low end.

I cannot recommend seeing this band in concert strongly enough. As wonderful as the songs are on record, I don’t think you get the full idea of their character or a full sense of their level of craft as musicians. Their set is both unambiguously fun and heart-meltingly lovely, and I find that this combination of silly and romantic is quite hard to come by. Also, it’s worth noting that the singers look exactly as you’d want them to: Hayden Thorpe has a shabby, roguish affect that suits his hobo-with-the-voice-of-an-opera-diva style, and Tom Fleming — the guy with the deep, heroic tone — looks like he should be riding around on a horse in a suit of armor.

Buy it from Amazon.