Equally Elegant And Ugly

Wild Beasts “Hooting & Howling”

As per usual, the most fascinating and alluring thing about this Wild Beasts song is the vocal tone and mannerisms of Hayden Thorpe. The man sings like a street tramp affecting the style and grace of an opera diva, resulting in songs that are at once disarmingly beautiful and disorienting in their outright weirdness. As the band have progressed, they’ve gravitated toward a spare, romantic guitar style that makes them sound like something an alternate universe version of ’80s U2 in which The Edge is forced to reckon with serving the aesthetics of a silly, foppish oddball rather than the world-beating earnestness of Bono.

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