Today I sank my teeth into the new Arctic Monkeys record. Listening to a new Monkeys record is always an affair you're never quite sure what the outcome might be such is their stylistic ambiguity.
This is not the same band (albeit the same people) that exploded out of packed clubs in the mid-2000's, every comment on their YouTube videos could tell you that. The colossal, almost terrifying speed at which they hurtled to the top gave the band a rabbit-caught-in-headlights look about them for many years. This is the most mature (sorry, cliche) record to date almost because of this image that had hung on them for so long.
Having every album they put out hit the number 1 spot has not made Alex Turner and co. complacent with the direction or sound they are producing. Each one is uniquely Arctic Monkeys. It is this creativity that drives people to hear what they have in store next...
The album starts out with Do I Wanna Know? which highlights two features for the listener: the first, how chilled and laid back this affair is going to be. Secondly, just how fucking slow the songs move at. Maybe not so much a complaint about this song but will become more apparent later on. The twelve-string riff is catchy and overlaid with a fuzz worthy of a QOTSA song. Accompanied by a very nod worthy bass line this makes a classic opener so seemly easily executed by a band that have spent their whole professional career right at the top of the pack. Also, the first inclusions of drummer Matt Helders soul esque falsetto voice over Alex's reverb laden, nearing crooner-like voice shows that yet again the Monkeys are morphing into another beast. This time a heaving beast packing R'n'B rhythms and a seventies fuzz.
Lead single R U Mine? I'm going to come straight out and say is probably one of Arctic Monkeys best songs to date. With a scuzzy groove big enough to get my 85 year old granddad dancing the contention for best song on the record was always going to be one sided. The drumming is, unlike the rest of the album, somewhat complex and articulated. Lyrically, yes you guessed it Alex has still got it. Lines like "I'm a puppet on a string Tracy Island, time-travelling diamond" will have people smiling like a baby that's popping bubbles. It is evident that this was a song written in quick succession after 2011's Suck It And See. It certainly contains the energy of a band celebrating another touring cycle well done...
After the notable appearances of songs such as Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High, an almost entirely drum and bass led song with enough swagger to scare Julian Casablancas running, and Arabella a fully fledged tribute to the seventies, there really isn't very much else to report here...
There are album fillers aplenty here. The energy that the guitars carried through the first half of the album all but disappears and with it so too does the drumming because it just gets slower. Momentum is just, gone. By the time I wanna Be Yours ends there is a feeling that that latter half of the album with exceptions just does not live up to the groove juggernaut the the first half unleashes on us. Disappointing really as the likes of R U Mine? and Arabella had signalled a sound that could have easily have been capitalised on.
What we have here is again another mixed bag of concoctions and remedies of their past from a band that are trying to live up to the expectations of, well, the whole world. However as a band with still an ever growing fan base and now, for the first time, the live show to match they will only continue to carve the path their way. A classic? Maybe not but damn it ain't hard to dance your arse off to a good few songs on here.
7/10
Seb Wainwright
Twitter: @Get_WhatYouGive
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