Sound check: Arctic Monkeys are ready to evolve

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Rock school: Alex Turner’s long hair-and- vests look at last weekend’s Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago

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U2 are in London for yet another football stadium extravaganza tonight. As they approach three decades at the top, Bono and friends are still coining the biggest of the big bucks now that the real money in music comes from live performance.

But who will take their place when they vanish to the great political summit in the sky? Huge venues need huge acts — and the production line seems to be grinding to a halt.

Coldplay and Muse are the most recently promoted to the big league but both have been around for more than a decade now. Since 2000, we have seen public interest in hotly tipped bands such as The Enemy, The Fratellis and The Kooks shy or collapse completely at the second long-player.

Younger stadium hopefuls such as Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand and The Strokes had lost the love of the public by the time of their third albums.

Which leaves the Arctic Monkeys as the only credible candidates as the band of the next generation — an act who might enjoy the far-reaching popularity of an Oasis or the long-standing acclaim of a Radiohead, and headline Glastonbury and sell out the O2 for years to come. In their early twenties, the Sheffield quartet seem to have been anointed with rock-giant permanence even before they release their third album, Humbug, on 24 August. They are already heritage rock magazine cover stars. But do this contrary bunch want such a mantle?

The tight-knit foursome's early success — two number ones, five BRIT Awards, the Mercury Prize and an Ivor Novello on the back of a first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, that was the fastest-selling debut of all time upon release in 2006 — gave them an aura of invincibility that has allowed them to get away with much that would damage lesser bands.

On their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, the tracks Brianstorm and Teddy Picker seemed to be sneering at sections of their own fanbase: “Who'd want to be men of the people when there's people like you?” Last year frontman Alex Turner recorded a side project, The Last Shadow Puppets, revealing a love for Sixties orchestral pop that could have been indulgent pastiche in less capable hands. Neither work diminished them in the public's affections.

Now it's all change once more. The band have been seen in Black Sabbath T-shirts and vests, sporting the long hair of the proper rock band.

They have vowed never to play certain songs from their first album again. Most of Humbug was recorded on analogue equipment, in a studio in the Mojave Desert belonging to Josh Homme of dirty American rockers Queens of the Stone Age. Of 25 tracks collected they chose just 10, none of which sounds like an obvious hit single to rival Fluorescent Adolescent or I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.

Turner once spat his vocals out savagely. Now his voice has matured into a sinister croon on tracks such as The Jeweller's Hands. His lyrics no longer tell true tales of city life but are surreal and often sexual: “My propeller won't spin and I can't get it started on my own,” he informs us over the spooky twang of the album's opener, My Propeller. “Sharpen the heel of your boot/And you press it in my chest and you make me wheeze/Then to my knees you do promote me,” is the most arresting image on Dangerous Animals.

They're not louder than they have been in the past but the loud songs here are mostly slower, avoiding speedy thrills in favour of grinding power. Ballads are more prominent from the echoing shimmer of Fire and the Thud to the minimal Secret Door, recorded in a bizarre wooden dome known as The Integratron, near Joshua Tree, California.

The songs shift in pace and style midway through. This isn't one new direction, it's lots of unexpected ones. Humbug is a grower — but do we have time for such a curiosity in this fast-moving age? It could demote Arctic Monkeys from everyone's band to one for more specialised tastes — but a bit of reinvention never harmed the Radiohead of Kid A or even the U2 of Achtung Baby. If their fans can keep up with this rapidly evolving band, they could be cheering them on at Wembley one day, too.
Humbug is released on 24 August on Domino.

NEW ON THE NET
*As they prepare for the appearance of their fifth album, The Resistance, next month, there's no sign of Muse (below) going folk. Two new tracks have emerged online and suggest that it will be as bonkers as ever. United States Of Eurasia has echoes of Ravel's Boléro in its prominent piano motif and nicks its multitracked vocals from Queen. Uprising is a synth stomper that starts off like the Dr Who theme. Search for them on YouTube or pre-order the album at muse.mu to receive free downloads in the run-up to release.

*At the same time as it received its first airing on the radio, Ian Brown's thumping new single Stellify has also been made available to buy in the iTunes store, together with three more songs from next month's sixth solo album, My Way. They're good enough to silence the talk of a Stone Roses reunion.

*Californian turntablist DJ Shadow, owner of many of the world's rarest records, is making it rather easier for fans to get hold of his own material. He's relaunched www.djshadow.com to sell numerous exclusive downloads direct, as well as CDs and “Handmade” vinyl, complete with a sleeve inscribed with the buyer's name.

 

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