Wild Beasts, Cardiff, Coal Exchange

By Russell Warfield

March 16, 2012

As much as I love Wild Beasts, it’s the allure of hyper-promupstarts alt-J which entices me to make the trip to see my ex-homecity’s best exports for what must be close to the billionth time. There’s just a clutch of tracks circulating around the net in advance of their full debut (due later this year), but material as strong as ‘Fitzpleasure’ and ‘Breezeblocks’ is more than enough to get people rightly excited about this band. And, just a few days before the gig, I realise that I’ve encountered these chaps before – playing the back rooms of pubs in Leeds during my university years. Then called Films, they were incredibly arresting and promising even in that germinating state. Tonight, alt-J move through their songs with competence and style, even if somehow lacking a slight measure of vitality – there’s a little reserve to the vocals; the electronics sound a little canned; the components of the arrangements never quite meld together into a unified perfection. But these are quibbles – the tiniest chinks in the armour of a band who are still very much in their infancy, and tonight is a perfectly solid airing of an eerily accomplished set of tracks for material comprising a debut record – very, very encouraging. … Continue Reading

Muso’s Guide’s Favourite 50 of 2011 – 10-1

We’ve spent the last two days unveiling numbers 50-11 in our top 50 songs of 2011, and now the time has come to unveil what Muso’s Guide’s hefty panel of writers nominated as their top 10 songs released this year. It’s been a pretty diverse selection thus far, and the top end of the chart is no different. … Continue Reading

Muso’s Guide’s Favourite 50 of 2011: 20-11

Yesterday we posted numbers 50-21 in our Favourite Songs of the year countdown, and we’re edging ever closer to the Top 10. Today sees us revealing the bottom half of our top 20, which can be enjoyed below, in tantalising reverse order of course. … Continue Reading

Albums Of 2011: 10-1

PJ Harvey

Welcome to the fifth and final part of our albums of the year countdown – for the rest of the week, we’ll be bringing you our favourite albums of 2011, as voted for by our writers. Earlier this week, we revealed 50-41, 40-31, 30-21 and 20-11. We’ll bring you our favourite songs of the year next week. All in all, 24 lists were totted up by Mitchell Stirling, and votes were cast by Tom Bolton, Paul Brown, Sam Cleeve, Jane Corcoran, Lucy Dearlove, Rosie Duffield, Ben Dufton, Paul Faller, Stephen Ferdinando, Paul Gettings, Alex Kavanagh, Dannii Leivers, Steve McGillivray, Kenny McMurtrie, Jim Merrett, Greg Salter, Natalie Shaw, Andrew Schagen, Harley Sherman, Stef Siepel, Mitchell Stirling, Stephanie Stevens-Wade, Antonio Tzikas, and Russell Warfield. This list, and everything else that we do, would not have been possible without them and all our other writers – thank you! … Continue Reading

Constellations Festival 2011, Leeds

Constellations 2011

By Russell Warfield

November 12, 2011

This year’s Constellations Festival was a double-decker treat for me. Not only was it a second straight year of excellent music at Leeds University Union (and only the second year in total, to boot), but it was also the first time that I managed to get back oop n’rth after graduating from the university earlier this year. Gorgeously decorated stages aside, it was a joy to roam around the place, enjoying performances, supping on pints which didn’t require me to sell a kidney to purchase. (Note to self: don’t just turn this into a review of how much you love Leeds) … Continue Reading

Wild Beasts New Single: Reach A Bit Further

Wild Beasts are to release Reach a Bit Further as the next single from their widely acclaimed top twenty album, Smother. Reach a Bit Further is an exercise in the happy / sad love song built around Benny Little’s exquisite guitars, cathartic call and answer vocals from Hayden Thorpe / Tom Fleming and a distinctive galloping drumbeat from Chris Talbot. The single will be available on 14th November via digital download. Click below for your exclusive listen!

Wild Beasts – Thankless Thing by DominoRecordCo

… Continue Reading

Wild Beasts present ‘Bed Of Nails’ video and add new London show to UK tour

Wild Beasts are all over the place at the moment, touring behind their widely praised third album Smother. They’ve found time to shoot the video for that album’s next single though – you can watch the performance clip for ‘Bed Of Nails’ below. Meanwhile, check out the band’s tourdates below – they’re being supported by Braids or Dutch Uncles, and they’ve added extra shows in Manchester and London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire. … Continue Reading

Albums Of The Year – April To June

At the beginning of April, we brought you our favourite albums of the first three months of the year. Terrifyingly, we’re now halfway through 2011 and it’s time to reveal the records we’ve most enjoyed in the year’s second quarter. These are picked by our editors and it’s a bit of a mixed bunch – there’s one or two albums here you won’t have been able to avoid, many that we’ve already reviewed, and a few that have slipped under the radar. Here’s 11 for the second quarter of ’11. … Continue Reading

Wild Beasts – Smother

Chances are, you’re probably reasonably familiar with how much of a game-changer Two Dancers proved to be for Wild Beasts. If this isn’t the case, then try tapping the band’s name into the little search box off to the right, and prepare yourself to be thrust headlong into a sea of adoration from various dwellers of Muso’s Towers. Of course, it wasn’t just us for whom 2009-2010 was one long band crush, because it truly felt like the entire world gave their hearts over to the band, culminating in a nomination for The Mercury Music Prize which would, of course, see them defeated by The XX. (Although even as someone who enjoyed xx, I struggle to see how it, or indeed any album on the short list better embodied the spirit of creativity and innovation for which the Mercury apparently stands than Two Dancers, but hey, it’s all (slightly bitter) water under the bridge now). … Continue Reading

Record Store Day Report

A selection of our writers recount their Record Store Day experiences – featuring queues, Doctor Who, queues, Jeanie Finlay’s Sound It Out, and queues. … Continue Reading