Wild Beasts LIVE @ O2 Academy, Liverpool, 30.10.14

Rating:

With its outstanding bill of localised and enduring international talent, the 10th edition of Liverpool Music Week has certainly generated a lot of buzz this time around.

Last Thursday night we headed to the O2 Academy, to revel in the pop-perfection of the Wild Beasts carefully curated line-up. Meeting somewhere in-between the musical stylings of James Blake and Justin Vernon, the enveloping soundscapes of Gwilym Gold sweep over us a soon as we enter. Wild Beasts’ Hayden Thorpe stands next to us triumphantly supporting the ‘support’, with his arms entwined around the woman in front of him – maybe this ‘writing sexier songs’ is working out better for everyone, who knows?

We’re given a jaw-rattling jolt of bass, which means Nimmo have taken to the stage. The five-piece are on great form, sounding reminiscent of contemporaries Jungle, with their penetrating pop generating a wave of head-bopping. Money soon saunter on, Carlsberg cans in hand and deliver a storming set. Frontman Jamie Lee positions his mic stand down in the pits, in a standoff position with some especially fervent fans. The post-punk outfit tear through the spectral movements of ‘Bluebell Hill’ and ‘Letter To Yesterday’, from their 2013 debut, The Shadow Of Heaven.

By the time Wild Beasts stroll on, looking rather slick indeed, the crowd seem well watered and injected with some wanderlust of their own. Beneath their ‘Present Tense’ arch, the Kendal band immediately step out of Northern lad-rock mold, with the sensuous ‘Mecca’.

With ‘Sweet Spot’ we get a taste of what’s going to be a dramatic and electrifying staple for the whole show, which is: when, after the halfway mark, a song is stripped back to just vocals and grumbling bass, it suddenly detonates, into a cataclysmic force of divine modulating synth lines and sonorous voices.

“Here’s a track from before we went all synthetic” announces Tom Fleming as he shifts into ‘The Devils Crayon’, displaying the Beasts’ indie guitar mastery from back in ‘08. ‘Daughters’ is definitely one we’ve all been waiting for. The ominous track culminates with the lyrics “destroyer of worlds…” and erupts into the best breakdown of the evening. True systematic chaos, hats off to you boys.

‘Hooting & Howling’ has us all yowling along and then ‘Palace’ – which I thought was my favourite track of ‘Present Tense’, but now, you know I’m just not sure – whisks us away to those most tender moments of our past infatuations. Then ‘Nature Boy’ sees Fleming writhe around in a thick red haze seeming like Nick Cave performing a rendition of Red Right Hand, armed only with a synth and a brooding baritone.

After a bit of bongo bother – “Should Northern lads be having bongo trouble?” – the four-piece finishes up with ‘A Dog’s Life’.

Upon their exultant return they power through ‘Wanderlust’; Fleming then goes on to introduce “a song all about fucking” also known as ‘All The King’s Men’ and they conclude with the slow-burning ‘Lion’s Share’. I think it’s safe to say we certainly got the lion’s share out of the show this time guys; the nostalgia’s getting a bit much for me now. I better pop ‘Present Tense’ back on.