Indie legend has it that when Wild Beasts first performed in Leeds they could not even muster the courage to face forwards and look out from the stage. How times have changed though, as tonight, playing the second of two nights at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, the group carry off a sleek and confident show that would have seemed practically foreign just a few short years ago.

Hayden Thorpe dresses for the occasion, lounge lizard personified with his black polo neck jumper, sipping at red wine in between songs. Stood to the right, joint frontman Tom Fleming dresses down, wearing just a vest, confusing us as to just what temperature it is up on the stage. The group soon crank up the thermostat, however, with their literate stories of romance, packed full of tales from between the sheets. ‘Lion’s Share’ and ‘Bed Of Nails’ are brushed with lusty strokes, filling the theatre with voyeuristic extracts from the duo’s dirty diaries.

Fleming references the “shit-hole basements” in which a young Wild Beasts first played to the walls, and you can’t help but feel that in a time when record labels are often criticised for not giving bands time to grow, Wild Beasts stand almost alone in being an ever-improving example of what time, patience and freedom can do for an act. Later on, the reserved opening moments from this year’s ‘Smother’ album are offset by the comparatively saucy early track ‘The Devil‘s Crayon’ whilst a positively magnificent ‘Hooting and Howling’ gets the crowd chanting. Saucy as they are, Wild Beasts will always be more Alan Bennett than Russell Brand though, and long may they continue.

David Renshaw