Arctic Monkeys

Music review: An artfully composed Arctic Monkeys orchestrate a breakthrough on new album

By The Burg Staff on Jun. 08, 2011
By Matt Ashare

In 2009, Britain’s Arctic Monkeys took a fairly unexpected left turn — not to mention a long plane ride — when they left the cold comfort of Sheffield for Josh Homme’s sun-baked Southern California desert enclave, where America’s reigning king of neo-stoner rock helped produce the foursome’s third disc. It would be wrong to assess the resulting release, Humbug, as an artistic failure. But for a band whose 2005 debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, came out of nowhere to become the fastest selling album in British chart history (in the process all but eclipsing Arctic Monkeys’ like-minded Domino label mates Franz Ferdinand), it certainly marked a modest commercial setback.
     Homme, best know as Queens of the Stone Age’s fearless leader, is back to lend a hand on Arctic Monkeys’ new album. Only, this time, his role amounts to little more than adding some nondescript background vocals to the noisy, supercharged, and willfully dumbed-down “Brick By Brick,“ a lumbering power chord rocker featuring guitarist Jamie Cook on vocals and a rather Homme-y blast of guitar-god soloing by — and I’m guessing here — singer/guitarist Alex Turner. The song, which was leaked via a YouTube video back on March 4, was conceived, I suspect, as a puckish prank or smokescreen to mislead fans and critics alike into assuming that the rest of the disc would be much in keeping with the dark density of Humbug, rather than a return to the infectiously playful, hyperkinetic post-punk intensity of the band’s first two albums.
     None of the above: that would be the most accurate assessment of Suck It And See (yes, that’s what the disc’s called). To suggest that a band who have chosen a title that’s caused more than a little consternation in the boardrooms of big-box retailers like Wal-Mart for their most accessibly melodic disc to date have “matured” might invite something along the lines of, say, ridicule. And, although it wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to characterize the disc that way, I’m gonna play it safe and suggest that, minus “Brick By Brick,“ Suck It And See — an album well poised to be Arctic Monkeys’ big American breakthrough — is better described as a recording that’s more clearly composed, in both senses of the word, than their previous efforts.
     There are echoes of the bash-and-pop punk that propelled the quick-fire blasts of Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not and 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare, most notably in the reeling and rambunctious first minute of “Library Pictures.“
There’s even some bark in Turner’s voice as he bites into meaty bits of lyric like “Draw some ellipses to chase you round the room/Through curly straws and metaphors and goo.“ And then the clouds of distortion fade, the drums stop pounding, and Turner turns to a croon for the impressionist, vaguely psychedelic verse/bridge — “Been watching all the neon blossoms flickering/You look like you’ve all forgotten where you’ve been.“
     Turner’s always been a cynical romantic with a peculiarly persuasive way with words that brings to mind former Blur front man Damon Albarn. “I pour my aching heart into a pop song/I couldn’t get the hang of poetry,“ he cheekily acquiesces against the melancholy tug of Cook’s Johnny Marr-ish, Smiths-style arpeggios on the title track, before deploying one of the disc’s most arresting images: “That’s not a skirt, girl/That’s a sawn-off shotgun/And I can only hope/You’ve got it aimed at me.“
     With Cook brandishing his guitar to paint colorful figures around Turner’s never less than vivid lyrics, and bassist Nick O’Malley and drummer Matt Helders holding back just enough to give Turner the room he needs to employ a purer tone of voice, Arctic Monkeys, at their most composed and, yes, accessible, have begun to take on aspects of mid-period Echo and the Bunnymen. Except, I’m pretty certain Ian McCulloch never wrote a lyric as alluringly oblique, emotionally evocative, and playfully pointed as “Home sweet home, home sweet home, home sweet booby-trap/I took the batteries out my mysticism and put ’em in my thinking cap”. . . At least not in the context of a song as sing-along catchy as “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala.“