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May 9, 2011100They are, right now, the most inspirational, intriguing, effortlessly enrapturing band at work on these shores. And Smother might well prove to be the album of 2011.
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May 19, 201190After you let it seep its way into your daily life, Smother reveals itself as the type of masterwork so fragile and unobtrusive as to leave itself vulnerable to being brushed away by those listeners without patience. Don't let yourself be among them.
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May 12, 201190Overall, Smother is brilliant, and a record by a band with a big brain, a generous heart, hungry ears and a permanent erection.
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May 9, 201190The Cumbrian quartet haven't fumbled the ball with the follow-up. Smother, recorded in the shadow of Snowdonia, tinkles and twinkles like the classiest adult-alternative pop of the 1980s.
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May 9, 201190Smother is deeply sad and lonely, but still a barbed invitation to intimacy; like Coleridge's albatross, an extraordinarily elegant, stunning, (near)-perfect portrait of how terribly bad decisions can turn out.
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May 9, 201190While it stands apart, this is an evolution that will please both Wild Beasts' early adopters and the many converts that will surely follow from what is, without doubt, one of the stand out releases of the year.
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May 9, 201190It'd be reductive to try and describe a timeless album like Smother as a step up from its two predecessors, or even as a surefire Mercury contender--although it is, on both counts.
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May 9, 201190Smother does exactly what it suggests but with a poetic fragility and an exacting panache that enthrals and entices like never before. An essential album.
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May 9, 201190Wild Beasts continue to find finer ways of expressing themselves while still holding onto the primal passion they've always had, and Smother is some of their most accessible yet creative work.
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May 13, 201182Wild Beasts have remained an act with no intention of blending in. Smother, their third full-length, is just as the above quote promises: completely uncompromising. And that's why it succeeds.
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Jun 10, 201181Poised as hyper-indulgent fellas, Smother is a startlingly controlled album, one that's exactly as smooth and smoldering as its moniker posits.