HAYDEN Thorpe’s mannered, soaring countertenor is British rock’s most startling voice since the operatic swoon of The Associates’ Billy Mackenzie on The Affectionate Punch.

And as with the exotic Eighties’ Scots, the fearless young Wild Beasts look destined to be critics’ darlings – Two Dancers is in all the Albums of the Year lists – but a delicious enigma beyond commercial impact. Eschewing the overblown excesses of last year’s Limbo, Panto debut, the Leeds band with the Lake District roots now bring greater focus to their “erotic downbeat music”.

Serious but saucy boys with an eye for the lascivious and melodramatic, they are a left-field Smiths, a camper Orange Juice, devilishly dark and grotesque, yet seeking the seductively shimmering light as they depict the wild-girl fisticuffs and bad-lad sexual craving of dance-floor Britain with a filthy, florid flourish and itchy-fingered guitars. Breathtakingly brilliant, brutal and beautiful.