Smother

It seems Wild Beasts may be evolving into the Talk Talk of the 21st century. After their antic debut Panto, Limbo suggested an occasionally thrilling but ultimately untenable middle ground between The Libertines and Antony and the Johnsons, the smoothed-out follow-up Two Dancers brought forward bassist Tom Fleming's vocals in support of falsetto-voiced frontman Hayden Thorpe and brought the intensity down to an elegant simmer. Smother continues that trend, with the dancefloor beats now reduced to heartbeat-like pulses. (The band have repeatedly mentioned minimalist pioneer Steve Reich as a major influence on this album.) The lyrics remain just as erotically charged as before: don't attempt a drinking game based on taking a shot every time Thorpe or Fleming uses words related to the mouth, lips or tongue, for alcohol poisoning would set in before hypnotic album closer "End Come Too Soon" swirls to a conclusion. But there's a sense of darkness about the album; in place of the effervescent rush of earlier favorites like "We Still Got The Taste Dancin' On Our Tongues," songs like "Lion's Share" and "Plaything" are about the dying stages of relationships that have already gone on too long. On first listen, the musical maturity and somber tone might seem off-putting to those first beguiled by utterly bonkers early singles like "Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants," but Wild Beasts haven't just grown up, they've gotten better.