Wild Beasts - Assembly
If you clicked on and played the B-side ‘Sylvia, A Melodrama’ before you ‘Assembly’, you’d think Wild Beasts were a order of monks paying homage to Sylvia Plath with a song that sounds like it was written by someone who’s never left the secluded monastery they were born in. Once you’d heard the A-side you’d realise, actually, they’re musicians who like 80’s pop impersonating them.
The vocals on both songs are falsettos too high to make any of the words but ‘Assembly’ sounds like Madness gone to the circus while ‘Sylvia…’ is like Radiohead’s more experimental moments done without anything electric.
Listen to them in the right order. You’ll get a brilliant song good enough for the top forty without sounding like anything else in it and be willing to give Wild Beasts another three minutes for a song most would bury at the end of an album where you can switch off before being reminded of it.
‘Sylvia...’ is good, ‘Assembly’ is better and side by side they show how promising this new band are. If Wild Beasts have enough songs that sound like and as good as these, the best album of 2008 could be just around the corner.