Two Dancers
Wild Beasts
2009
Album Summary
Two Dancers is the second studio album by British indie rock band Wild Beasts. It was released on 3 August 2009 in the UK on Domino Records, with a US release on 8 September. The track "Hooting and Howling" was released as the album's first single on 20 July. Two Dancers was very well received by critics. In 2010. It was awarded a silver certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 30,000 copies throughout Europe. As of February 2018 it has sold 54,474 copies in United Kingdom and it remains there their top selling album according to OCC.
Wikipedialots of unintelligible moaning and mumbling over repetitive, droning instrumentation/electronic beats. for the first few tracks, i could see through the banal slog at what could have been interesting--part kate bush/peter gabriel synth driven artpop. but as it wore on, it wore me down. fuck this album
That was really hard work. The voice hurts my ears, my brain, and my sense of decency. It's awful! Musically the album isn't horrible, but damn that voice is all over the place, off-key, out of tune, trying to be all unique, and just ending up as a big pile of nastiness. Someone should be locked up for making me listen to this!
This is a confusing pick for this experiment into must listen to albums
This dreampop by Topman mannequins is as vapid as it comes. If these dorks have something to communicate, they don't come anywhere near communicating it with their affected shrieks and chants. I'm 182 albums in. This is possibly the worst yet.
7/10. This sounded pretty nice overall, and it worked both as background music and when I paid more attention. Still, it wasn’t super engaging, sounded rather droning and I didn’t really care for the vocals
Two Dancers by Wild Beasts (2009) Here the listener is subjected to artless, conversational, non-metrical, and underdeveloped lyrics written by some guys who clearly haven’t heard enough hip hop, metal, punk, or classic rock (this list could go on and on). They want so badly to be bad. But they choose the wrong métier. They write and sing (and sound!) like kids. They’re not old enough to be reprobates. Their swagger is weenie. The misogyny is ambiguous. And now is not the time for ambiguous misogyny. With such a sad poetic foundation, their music is even sadder. It’s hard to imagine a greater distance between sonic ambience and discursive meaning. The groove is cool enough, until lead singer Hayden Thorpe opens his mouth and starts ‘singing’ airy and lacy falsetto anti-melodies. “We’re just brutes”, he sings (“Hooting and Howling”) in a lilting, faux feminine lilt. It’s almost funny. No, it is funny. No, it’s damn hilarious. And Tom Leming, who takes on lead vocals in four of the eleven tracks, tries this same trick, and the results even more (is it possible?) laughable. Where’s the gong? Chris Talbot’s drumming is good. Look, folks, this album would be worth listening to if you took away the lyrics, compositions, arrangements, lead vocals, backing vocals, and most of the music. I’m being generous. 1/5
I liked this more than I thought I would, especially after hearing the guy’s voice. The instrumental parts were better.
Loved the music; voice was different, weird at first but got better and better as the album went on. Fantastic album
Music is transcendent, vocals sometime err on the side of comical. Still…
More like 3.5 stars for being good but after a while it turned into background noise
bit of a weird one - im stuck between giving them a 3 star and a 2 star depending on which song i listen to
J'ai écouté très attentivement cet album, mais je suis au regret de vous annocner que la liste de Robert ne me fait actuellement plus bander. Les albums insignifiants s'enchaînent à une vitesse éclaire, et l'on commence à douter des réelles motivations de notre gourou suprême à tous.
Got excited to hear a new indie band especially on the domino label. Turned out to be disappointing with the vocalist sounding like a poor man’s Vitas.
9/10. Quite good. Hooting and Howling and This is Our Lot stood out to me, but all of the songs had unique sounds to them that made listening to the album engaging throughout.
Absolutely fantastic! I love the vocal performance on this a LOT, and this is my favorite type of indie pop. Great!
Rating: 9/10 Best songs: the fun powder plot, Hooting & howling, All the king’s men
Pleasantly surprised to see this one made the list. I love me some Wild Beasts.
I liked it, cool indie album. Nice sound. Not really sure what my favorite song is but I think I'll revisit. 6/8.
This was unexpected. Liked the mellow vibe but it also has a weird intensity that made it not boring.
Instrumentals were very good, but I had no interest in the vocals whatsoever. Though the Spotify-produced radio station that was suggested after this album was very good.
Never heard of Wild Beasts before now. Sounds like a mixture of Talking Heads & Moby. Good mellow mood music.
Hm, strange one. I liked the instrumentation as pretty good ambient background music. The vocals were quite a mixed bag. Really hated the track with the high-pitched vocals. Can't say with that was, they blended together too much for me.
Had me in the first one, lost me in the last 9. Didn’t hate it, just hoped to have enjoyed it more.
When the falsetto began I stopped the track immediately. What was that? But I later dutifully listened to the album and it really started to grow on me. A fascinating, quirky, stylistically different alt offering, trying to provoke the listener into a reaction. Both in your face and listen in the background. Lyrics were often awful! One to ponder.
Pour ceux qui n'ont pas bien saisi ce que faisait cet album indie dans la liste des 1001, il y a une explication toute simple. Entre 2005 et 2015, Robert a littéralement passé son temps à écouter de l'indie music pour accompagner son sentiment d'indépendance post-Erasmus. Doutez-vous bien que cette surconsommation a laissé des traces et qu'en 2015, plus personne n'hésitait à le désigner par le terme de "connard".
I didn't like the lead singer's voice and didn't care much for the songwriting
Never heard of this before. Not sure if it’s a valid “album you must hear before you die”, but it was fine
Indie fluff, not sure why its on the list. Sounds like a worse version of the xx, which is fitting since they were nominated for the mercury prize but lost to the xx
It definitely picked up for me on the back half, but this just isn’t for me. This is one of those albums where I respect it more than I like it. Cool atmospherics in here, and some genuinely enjoyable songs, but it hovers too much in the same low key tempo. And that falsetto singing voice is the definition of an acquired taste
the grooves are good but the singer's weird falsetto singing was grating. meh
i really wanted to like this. i'd never heard of them, and was psyched for something new and interesting coming from the comparatively-recent past. that feeling lasted approximately halfway into the first track. by the last third, i found myself wondering when the last time was that i'd been actively angry at an album. i thought i'd found some relief at one point, but when i looked up, i saw that, in fact, this album had ended, and spotify had moved on to its suggested plays. in short, i did not like this. which is a shame, because i generally love spacey, reverb-ridden guitars, and i genuinely loved the beginning of the first track...but then homeboy's singing started, and that was kind of the end of it for me.
Music is OK. Vocals are dreadful. Very sure way to alienate your audience is by singing in a goofy falsetto.
Didn't really understand this album at all. Mostly inoffensive but bad, although there were a lot of parts that were miserable to listen to. Giving this 2 stars but it's really close to 1.
I believe that it's the kind of music from the 2000s that was made to win prizes and not to be enjoyable. "Indie rock" used in its worst connotation.
This is not modest mouse. Vocals are awful, too high and too low pitched.
The music beneath the vocals sounds amazing. Really cool drum stuff. But the extreme vibrato is not helping anything; it's extremely distracting. All the King's Men sounds like the band "Battles." Kinda makes me want to listen to them instead, since they don't have any singers as such.
Dig the music. Dislike the vocals. Yeah. I don't like this. Bad poetry sung in a way that annoys me.
Not my type of genre, the music is good it just the vocal isn’t my thing but not a bad album
I love this. Fantastic melodies and vibes. Right at home on an indie soundtrack.
They came up with a fun concept and implemented it well. Some alternative albums give me the impression that the artist is taking things music a bit too seriously. I don't have this problem with this record (this is, of course, very subjective). Also, love the chill new wave vibes.
Really cool Ethereal and dreamy sounds to me. I'd put this on in a heartbeat.
Surprised to find what I considered fairly obscure on this list. It’s a wonderful album that I have a huge amount of love for.
Wat een aangename verrassing! Heerlijke deuntjes die aan heel veel andere bands doen denken, lekker speels deuntje eromheen, ik vind het heerlijk. Ik ga hier zeker meer naar luisteren
First time through, I was listening in the background and the falsetto vocals were a bit off-putting. Next time around I appreciated the nice melodies and eclectic arrangements. And the guitar that sounds like Edge at the end of “We Still Got the Taste Dancing on our Tongues”. And the gritty, down-and-out lyrics. You have to admire a band that really strives to sound different. I have some of their recent material, with more aggressive chunky beats. Those tracks obviously did a better job of catching my attention than these nuggets.
2009 best year for indie rock. I've listened to some Wild beasts but never a full album I don't believe. I really enjoyed this. Dude has a killer falsetto and there's a nice variety of instrumentals.
Enjoyed this, made me want to make a snowboard edit. Took me a few tracks to get used to the vocals, but once I did, I found it worked very will with rest of the music.
Pretty weird but pretty good. Surprised I’d never even heard of this band at all.
This album was my introduction to Wild Beasts. Beautiful music, very bespoke and pretty, the voice felt ornate. The music kind of exemplifies the Indy-rock of Josh’s generation that came after mine, I missed the boat on it, but would be jealous of lip pierced hipsters riding by on fixies out hipstering me and listening to music like this. The voice and delivery are enigmatic, maybe try hard or post modern sarcastic even? I hear a lot of Indy rock now that seems inspired by this. Listening to the songs by this band that played after the album, which were even more dynamic, maybe their best albums were yet to come? 4.
I had never heard of this band or artist before so it was, for me, a new discovery. I think the beauty of this album is in his voice, which has such an impressive range.
i really enjoyed this and it would have been a 5 but towards the end of it i was kind of bored and starting to think "this sounds too much like alt-j/imagine dragons/glass animals" but ill have to re-listen and reassess honestly. also ive never even heard of this band so im not sure why theyre on this list but hey it was good ... cant complain!
Sort of a Bowie feel to some of it. It's alright. Don't think I'm very familiar, but it wasn't bad.
Não conhecia a banda, gostei. Me lembrou Muse Melhor música: Empty Nest
Reminiscent of Orange Juice and Suede, with a dash of U2. Gorgeous songs, elegantly arranged. I wasn't entirely sold on the vocals at first, but they grow on you. Fave Songs: Two Dancers (ii), We Still Got the Taste Dancin' on Our Tongues, Two Dancers (i), Empty Nest, This Is Our Lot, Underbelly
Good indie album, solid vibes throughout. Didn't feel like anything groundbreaking but was very enjoyable and comfortable.
Good indie music. Fairly unique for a genre that can become monotonous.
Two Dancers, Wild Beasts, 2009 -I'm ready for this atmospheric, plucky jam to crack this album open. Sounds very art-pop/experimental. Nothing wrong with a little playful off-key falsetto to keep you awake as the instrumentation competes to draw you into a trance. "This is a booty call", sure, how fun! -Hooting and Howling builds up and out beyond the first song, both instrumentation and vocals get a bit more serious and the overall composition of the song is soaked in emotion despite the repetitious and frivolous lyrics like the previous song. You really do get a sense of rolling toward the meat and cheese of the album in this song. -Love how playful the vocals continue to be in the third song, All the King's Men. I'll say frivolous again to describe the falsetto bits, which feel like a delightful frill against the grain of the somber and deep vocalist. This kind of juxtaposition is nothing new, but satisfying all the same. Who doesn't love a little contrast between two halves of a whole? -By song 4 I'm understanding that this is kind of their whole "thing", at least for this song. I think of 2009, and remember being smitten with MGMT, Empire of the Sun, Washed Out, Faust, Passion Pit, Blur, the Kooks, Of Montreal... and on, and on... admittedly this album was not a particularly original take when it was released - but I'll bet their songs were all over 8Tracks playlists. -We Still Got the Taste Dancing is so dreamy and easy to listen to. Nothing amazing but no complaints. If this album were a sandwich, we'd be at the cheese and it would be melty. -Two Dancers (i) and (ii) continue this vibe but more dark-mode in lyric and tone, which frankly, at this point, is necessary to hold my waning attention. -This is Our Lot is a nice come-down as the album wraps up - the vocals remain the main source of emotion in this tune as they did with prior songs, which is to say the instrumentation leaves something to be desired. I did get a kick out of the way the singer occasionally sounds like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. -Underbelly lifts us up and wakes us up and transitions smoothly into Empty Nest which cleanly wraps up the album. The instrumentation is consistent with the rest of the album and the vocals shift between melancholy and optimism, and not much else is going on. Nice little album. They secured 3 stars in my books early on for making great little tunes, but I struggle with giving them a 4th. I'll do it, but begrudgingly because I was not blown away.
If "Autumn in the North of England" was an album, this would be it. Spooky atmostpheric rock, great vocals.
I was skeptical at first, but into it by the end of the album. Enjoyed the lushness of the production and the soulful vocals. Makes me think of Bloc Party.
A nice find here, stylish and interesting. One’s not entirely sure how one missed this group in real time. First cut features as elegant and upmarket a “booty call” as one is likely to get. There’s an arty ominousness to the proceedings and lyrics, which keeps one engaged and a bit on edge. Societal decay and personal deterioration seem also danceable, in a modulated, melancholic sort of way. The falsetto is the strongest, and most original effect, and nicely suits the polished-up and sleekly modernized new wave vibe of the playing. Will be looking to hear more.