Wild Beasts, Boy King (Domino Records)
This British art-rock critic’s-darling has been building a head of steam over the course of several albums now, culminating with 2014’s Present Tense, which threw Animal Collective, krautrock, Radiohead and Roxy Music into a blender for maximum snowy indie-chill effect. There was a sort of Seal-ness to it also, not that it was a giant pile of easy-listening melody, but singer Hayden Thorpe channeled Brian Ferry and Thom Yorke with equal enthusiasm, always aiming for dramatic effect. For that matter, he’s now also emulating Yorke’s full-of-it jawboning, for instance referring to the guitar-centricity of this new LP in terms of phallic symbolism — come on, it’s just rawk, dude. Thing is, there’s not all that much guitar on Boy King, but there’s plenty of Moby-inflected downtempo stillness and soul-tech, like Chromeo trying to come up with a sequel to OK Computer. This may be just what the doctor ordered in your world, so I’ll simply wrap this up with an adamant “meh.” B-