The Singles Jukebox

Beasts on the prowl…

[Video][Website]
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Anthony Easton: Grinding and a bit lurid, a bit of a simulacra of any Rock and Roll fuck song, from the Rolling Stones onward, but the rollicking hips and the thrusting phallus are well represented. 
[8]

William John: It’s easy to romanticise Wild Beasts as the kind of band who write about sex like a person who idealises it as a series of sensual movements between sheets of Egyptian cotton — see the Talk Talk-politeness of most of Smother — but pay closer attention to something like “The Fun Powder Plot” and you’ll find a hook which crudely describes the act of anal foot fucking. “Get My Bang” is perhaps the first time the band’s preoccupation with carnality has been matched with a leathery, filthy stomp, something that bridges a gap between Hot Chip and St. Vincent’s “Surgeon.” If there’s any genius here, it’s in the switch from Hayden Thorpe, the more intriguing of the band’s two vocalists, wanting to “get his bang” to then finding himself in a position where his “bang” has gotten him by the throat, and has him “blubbing like a jealous child.” Whether you treat that as a genuinely vulnerable admission from someone who only seconds earlier thrust out his chest and demanded to make “mega fauna,” or merely another instance of reprehensible masculine petulance, will probably depend on how much time you’ve spent talking to men on Tinder.
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Alfred Soto: Those drums sure are mixed loud — the attendant guitar squawks run a distant second place. Considering the featureless vocal and pseudo-macho vocals, it’s just as well.
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Tim de Reuse: The phrase “get my bang” implies a power fantasy, but there’s something terribly on-edge here; the synths are all rusty and diseased, and the call-and-response of the hook is warped and pitched-down like a voice in the back of your head. The self-aggrandizing strut of the song’s title, delivered with swagger and obnoxious overconfidence, switches to a pathetic, breathy whimper at the bridge: “Why would you hold it back / Why would you hold it back from me?” It’s not quite a tonal reversal, but as the song goes on it gains an unhealthy subtext that proves to be pretty engaging.
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Ryo Miyauchi: I should’ve saw this “freak on the dance floor” thing coming from this band. While I couldn’t find many solid parts in Present Tense to grab on to, that abundance of empty space running counter to that voice was what made Wild Beasts stand out. The frontman’s nervous voice suits the new style well, but maybe too well. Now I want the music to be more unsettling than this safe bet.
[5]

Brad Shoup: Every time he says “get my bang” it’s a peculiar delight. The band’s doing “Couldn’t Get It Right” like Spoon would, but without the sense for groove. The batted-up vocal snippets offer a bit of menace, but again: the song is “Get My Bang”.
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Will Adams: The fuzzy synthbass and in-your-face drums recall Nine Inch Nails’ “Only,” only… this song is called “Get My Bang.”
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Claire Biddles: Every Wild Beasts song is about fucking and every Wild Beasts song makes me want to fuck. The first few seconds feels like descending the stairs of a sex club in a David Lynch film; fingers pushing back a gossamer-thin curtain; the anticipation of the erotic unknown. Before “Get My Bang”, even the more explicitly sexual Wild Beasts songs were coated in some form of kinky ambiguity, either via odd lyrical juxtapositions or the inherent strangeness of sexual invitation sung in Hayden Thorpe’s high, clipped voice. “Get My Bang” is base and direct. It just makes me want to FUCK — in capital letters, no games, no messing around. Hayden’s ordinarily oddly high voice is lower and sultrier and the sexual invitations are immediate — there’s “no getting it right / no getting it wrong / just getting it on.” There are rumbling voices in the background, and the bassline is so thick and gooey it’s almost physical. It’s “I’m a Slave 4 U” and “Supermassive Black Hole” and every other apocalyptic sex anthem that makes you want to fuck for hours and then set yourself on fire. It ends with a run of final persuasions –“if not now then when? If not you then who?” — but it’s been inevitable since the start. I’m taking off my jacket, let’s go.
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