Smother

The plump furnishings of their first two albums gone, <i>Smother</i> is a heartbroken ruin where Wild Beasts add grave, staticky synths to their graceful guitar pop. It turns out they do heartbreak just as well as they do lust, and survey their own failings with the acuity they brought to British mating rituals on <i>Two Dancers</i>. They wring loss from a plate of abandoned breakfast on “Deeper” and Hayden Thorpe gasps at his own cruel nature on “Plaything”.