Arctic Monkeys #22 - Sketchead is coming!

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Chimpin' Ain't Easy
grown up and roughed up, Arctic Monkeys struggle to find their inner mannishness

Oh, the predictable life of a British sensation. Your debut is assured legendary status (for at least a year). You'll be feted for dissecting, celebrating, and sneering at the lives of common people. Your follow-up will be more "challenging" but won't abandon your roots. You'll date famous, beautiful, unconventional women. Your third album, though, will push, probably too hard, for the thrill of the new. Such is the arc of Arctic Monkeys, who take a decidedly different direction on Humbug and rarely settle into comfortably.

Catapulted from obscurity to Internet insta-sucess in 2006, the barely post-teen quartet squealed and kicked onto the scene with jagged, ramshackle guitar rock and devilishly detailed observations about youth's distrust of, and distaste for, those not quite down. "All you people are vampires!" frontman Alex Turner howled on their debut, Whatever People Say I am, That's What I'm Not, which went to No.1 in the U.K. and was later hyperbolically named the fifth-best British album ever in an NME poll. The Monkeys were believably cynical, irresisibly literate lads, and their second album, 2007's Favourite Worst Nightmare, didn't stray far from the first, save some added instrumental heft.

But for Humbug, the band teams up with an unlikely sage: Queen of the Stone Age boss Josh Homme, who produced half of the album (Nighmare's James Ford handled the rest). It's an intriguing match, since Homme's own band boasts a masculine, manic swing that Arctic Monkeys clearly lack. Homme is a man, and QOTSA are a desert band, while the boyish Monkeys are pasty and pimply, prone to he occasional fit of whiny discomfort. So Humbug'sleadoff track, the languid come-on "My Propeller," is a pleasant surprise. "Coax me out, my low, and have a spin on my propeller," Turner moans a little creepily, like a Nick Cave in training.

Throughout, he shelves his frantic yelp in favor of the burlier croon he flexed for last year's orchestral-pop side project the Last Shadow Puppets.

The loungey "Fire and the Thud" finds Turner in a full-blown seduction mode: "You showed me my tomorrow beside a box of matches." He's still interested in the allure of words, but his lyrics have become more oblique, less cuttingly personal. He's not condescending to chavs under his breath or flipping off barrel-chested bouncers at Sheffield clubs. Turner is going for something more louche than that. But at times, his vocals-once the Monkeys' heartbeat- are buried under the sonic rumble. Reportedly, the band listened to lots of Hendrix and Cream while recording with Homme in the Mojave Desert's remote Joshua Tree area, and there is more mood (and keyboards) here than ever before. The bands oft-mentioned hip-hop influence is nowhere to be found. There's a downtempo, almost suffocating tonality to the songs. Jamie Cook's guitar is drench in pedal effects and reverb. This is oval-shaped music, circling around the tracks; it's accomplished, but not particularly infectious.

There are fleeting moments of the old Monkeys, like "Cornerstone" on which Turner, in recovery after a split, is so crushed-and unashamed-that he repeatedly asks a potential new mate, "Can I call you her name?" That's the guy we know: distressed but self-deprecating, hardened but hearty. Turner's momentary return to timidity is the least predictable thing about Humbug. Stay tuned for the back to basics fourth album.

Spin Magazine
6/10

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Op zaterdag 25 juli 2009 00:18 schreef Pomegranate het volgende:
Ze is een maand in Londen met nog een meisje van hetzelfde modellenbureau om allemaal modellenwerk te doen, heb ik van haar hyves begrepen.

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Op zaterdag 25 juli 2009 01:01 schreef conobram het volgende:
Iemand een rip van My Propeller in de aanbieding? Heb hem!