For over a decade, Wild Beasts, the Kendal quartet of Benny Little, Chris Talbot, Hayden Thorpe, and Tom Fleming released a set of albums that prevailed against the currents of musical orthodoxy. Instead, the quartet created a bespoke sound world, one in which the band’s instruments and the voices of Thorpe and Fleming were given free rein to explore their lyrical themes of lust, masculinity, hedonism, and their consequences. These were universal subjects given fresh impetus and meaning with each successive Wild Beasts release, most notably on the Mercury-nominated Two Dancers. Having decided to amicably cease working together in 2017, these records can now be heard as poetic commentary on the era in which they were created, from a group with a rare talent for making distinctive music accessible and popular.