Search - Wild Beasts :: Limbo Panto

Wild Beasts-All Hot & Bothered

S.G.R. Black | Denton, Texas | 11/03/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"One can guess fairly easily if one wanted to know what "Limbo, Panto," Wild Beasts' excellent debut album, will sound like. Much like their band name, the music presented here sounds, well, wild, animalistic, primitive, and somewhat tribal. Wild Beasts have two lead singers, Hayden Thorpe, whose vocals range from angelic and graceful to raw, rigid, and at times, incoherent, and Tom Fleming, whose vocals are the comeplete opposite; deep, soft, soothing, and yes, very sexy. The mixture is startlingly unique, if at times a bit too eccentric and erratric. Still, "Limbo, Panto" never fails to engage the listener.



What is "Limbo, Panto?" The dictionary defines 'limbo' as a place or state of restraint or confinement and 'panto' (derived from pantomine) as any or various dramatic dancing preformance in which a story is told by expressive bodily or facial movements of the performers. The result is ten songs of sexual angst, agression, and repression. On the opening track, 'Vigil For A Fuddy Duddy,' Thorpe wails, "Hug it to me, and the rubber raspberries, with wantingly wet mouth I suck . . . remind me of your gentle f**k." On 'Woebegone Wanderers,' Thorpe swears by his own cock and balls. So whether it's "casual sex with a hard up thug" as it is in "The Old Dog" or "huffing and puffing on the mattress stuffing" in 'She purr-purr-purr-purred-while-I-grrr-grrr-grrr-grrr-grrr-grred,' one thing is for sure, Wild Beasts have come from their mother's womb to swoon ('Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants'), and I, for one, am smittened.



A-"