Wild Beasts are coming to an end, and I’m going to miss them terribly. Announcing their split in September last year, they’ve most kindly given us some parting treats: a final album and a bunch of live shows this February. Last Night All My Dreams Came True, recorded over two days in London’s RAK studios, truly encapsulates their going out with a bang. It features re-recordings of well-loved tracks spanning over their 16-year career and five albums, including Limbo, Panto and Two Dancers.

Wild Beasts thoroughly live up to their name with thundering drums and the animalistic growling of Ben Little’s vocals in ‘All The King’s Men’; when hitting the high notes, Little seems to be almost laughing like ahyena. In an interview with Clash magazine, bassist Tom Fleming describes the album as “us giving the fewest fucks we’ve ever given.” And he’s right. They’ve given themselves full reigns over their musicality. You can literally hear them joking around in the studio at the end of ‘He The Colossus’ with the lyric, “stick that in your pie hole” (which I think should’ve ended the album, personally).

I was excited to see my all time bopper ‘Hooting and Howling’ on the track list. The live recording gives a ghostly quality to Hayden Thorpe’s slinky voice, but nonetheless that steady bass prevails as usual. I can see my nine year-old self, bouncing around to the original build up in Two Dancers, waiting for that crashing explosion. But, in the RAK recording, it’s replaced by a smooth electric guitar. I can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed but alas, as they said, they don’t give a fuck. You can see over their 16-year career that Wild Beasts have matured massively, as well as becoming both beastlier and wilder.

 

Louise Gilligan