Why are Wild Beasts still referred to as an indie rock band? Better still, how did The Independent recently come to pull rockers out of its big book of music descriptors? One listen to Smother should be enough to correct such strange ideas.

The gentle loops and swirls of Smother are carried on into Wild Beasts’ new single, Wanderlust, taken from their new album Present Tense, to be released on February 24th. With ghostly wavering synths replacing the tight guitar and piano lines heard on much of Smother, Hayden Thorpe’s vocals on Wanderlust move from angelic to alienated; it will be interesting to see if this shift is maintained throughout Present Tense.