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Arctics blast back, bolder and beefier
By Paul Connolly, London Lite 16.04.07
Monkey business: Alex Turner at the Astoria last week to preview tracks from the band's new album
Arctic Monkeys: Favourite Worst Nightmare
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Arctic Monkeys
Favourite Worst Nightmare (Domino)
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Last summer some people became concerned about the Arctic Monkeys. Just months after they released the fastest-selling debut album in UK history, the sales of Whatever You Think I Am, That's What I'm Not fell off a cliff while their laudable propensity to hurl prodigious amounts of new product at the market seemed to be dimming their star.
The Who The F**k Are The Arctic Monkeys and Leave Before The Lights Come On EPs not only underperformed commercially but were worryingly light on memorable tunes, not an accusation that could have been levelled at their output up until then.
Alex Turner, so insouciant about his band's elevation to voice-of-a-generation status only a few months earlier, was also starting to sound a little weary of all the attention and the awards.
So, displaying an instinctive grasp of music-biz nous way beyond his 21 years, Turner responded by taking his band off the market and back into the studio to record this, their second album.
Instead of trying to break America or touring the rest of the world endlessly - a certain recipe for increasing tension and lessening a band's grip on reality - the Monkeys headed for east London with James Ford, the producer responsible for the Klaxons' recent debut.
Surely the band which famously refused to change their silly name in the face of record company pressure would have the pips to pull themselves together.
Having heard the lead single, Brianstorm, I'll admit I was slightly alarmed. Even 20 listens on I can't hear much in the way of a tune and although the Monkeys have probably coined a new teenage catchphrase in "See you later, innovator", it's just not up to scratch.
Fortunately, this is the weakest song on Favourite Worst Nightmare, even if the beefiness of the playing foreshadows the album's increased muscularity.
This addition of muscle tissue to the Monkeys' limber musical frame is not the only enhancement. They are also much more flexible. Only Ones Who Know, for example, is a bittersweet ballad about moving on that is filigreed with woozy surf guitars.
Yet nothing will prepare you for the shock of album closer 505. Ushered in on a three-note devotional organ figure, Turner's voice croons - yes, croons - "I'm going back to 505/If it's a seven-hour flight or a 45-minute drive/In my imagination you're waiting lying on your side/With your hands between your thighs..." before the lushest rock song this side of Arcade Fire unfolds. True, he pronounces "your hands" "yer 'ands" - but still.
There's plenty of more typical Monkey fare, though, if you're not quite ready for them to take such giant steps.
Teddy Picker, savage surf-punk rock framing Turner's barbed X Factor-slating lyrics, is a standout but next single, Fluorescent Adolescent, will be the song of this year's festivals, with its gigantic ska-pop tune and lyrics about sexual dysfunction.
The Monkeys have done it again. How could we have ever doubted them?
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