LET’S get the obvious question out of the way first: is Smother as beautifully beguiling, engaging and downright magnificent as Wild Beasts’ last offering, Two Dancers?

Well, to compare the two is unfair because they are very different. With their Mercury-nominated second album, the Kendal four-piece went from small cult indie band to, er... bigger cult indie band. Smother isn’t likely to swell the ranks of sensitive souls hanging off the every warbled castrato word of singer Hayden Thorpe, but it will certainly satiate the desire of those who have been waiting for the new album.

Smother is less melodic than Two Dancers but still unmistakably Wild Beasts. Thorpe’s voice is incredible as the band turn their attention largely to sex and love – from seedy desire to aching longing, all handled with a creativity otherworldly in its magnificence. You won’t hum these tracks at work, but you will fall in love with Wild Beasts a little further – if that were possible.