Wild Beasts, The Cockpit, Leeds

With a name like Wild Beasts, you expect a band tearing onstage on motorcycles, emitting heavy metal thunder - not polite young men from Kendal fronted by a man singing falsetto. Hayden Thorpe's extraordinary voice is perhaps why Wild Beasts have often been dubbed "fey", although the tag does them a disservice. They wear vests and beanies, and look like they could handle a spot of building. They sing about beer, casual sex, thugs and football, and are not too effete for lines like "I swear by my own cock and balls" and references to "the bastards". Meanwhile, their song titles (Vigil for a Fuddy Duddy, Woebegone Wanderers) seem to come from literature, not pop. There are hints of early Roxy Music, Sparks and second world war military bands ("cheerio, chaps", they sing), all conspiring to make them probably the most original new band in Britain.

Wild Beasts don't do conventional pop hits, but pocket symphonies with awkward waltz timings, and dancing to them risks injury. Thorpe's voice - veering from Billy Mackenzie opera to a more laddy, Fratelli-type rasp - prompts gasps of "incredible" in the crowd. And the rhythm section are furiously inventive - guitarist Benny Little plays like an indie Nile Rodgers, and bassist Tom Fleming reveals his own classically-tinged vocal on Please Sir, an anti-war song that somehow mentions "chips with cheese". Wild Beasts are a similarly acquired taste, but are attracting a small, devoted following. One drunk girl celebrates them by snogging her female friend, and thrusting her bottom at the audience before finally being thrown out - for behaving like a Wild Beast.

· At Latitude Festival, Southwold, July 17-20 (Details: 0871 220 0260). Then touring.


See Also

• The Red Light Sting
• Steve Gorn
• Alan M
• In an ABSOLUT World, Good Things Happen When the Lights Go Out