Today's post must begin with a disclaimer; when I comes to Wild Beasts I find it damn near impossible to be impartial. I was so enamoured with Present Tense when it was released in Febraury that I wrote a love letter to it. For all our sakes I won't reproduce it here, but it goes to show the extremity of my affection; if I were pushed to pick an 'album of the year', it would be this one here. Having said that, I find myself somewhat reticent about waxing lyrical here, afraid of tarnishing your view of Present Tense, dear reader, with my muddy footprints.
I can speak about the facts; I could talk about how Present Tense was the band's first UK top ten record, how off the back of it they've played to 5000 people at Brixton Academy, and many more people in support of Arcade Fire and The National. When it comes to how utterly stunning the record is, however, and the ineffable grace with which it has aged as I have listened to and lived with it throughout the year, it is here where words begin to fail me (which is quite inconvenient considering words are my trade). In the end I must defer my words to others; as Jane Austen's Mr Knightley once said, "I cannot make speeches ... If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more".
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