ARCTIC MONKEYS: AM (2013)
1) Do I Wanna Know; 2) R U
Mine; 3) One For The Road; 4) Arabella; 5) I Want It All; 6) No. 1 Party
Anthem; 7) Mad Sounds; 8) Fireside; 9) Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High;
10) Snap Out Of It; 11) Knee Socks; 12) I Wanna Be Yours.
Either I am getting dangerously used to this
band, or this is not only the best Arctic Monkeys album ever, but the first real, authentic proof of why these guys
did need to get together in the first place, even if took them seven years to
finally whip it out. I have no idea what happened. Maybe they all sat down,
took a long time to think, ponder over the responsibility that undeservedly
gained fame and fortune piles upon the aspiring artist, then took a solemn vow
not to leave the studio until the «no-filler» principle reached a Beatlesque
level. Not that the songs are in any way Beatlesque as such. They are simply
all good, and it puzzles me.
Atmosphere-wise, AM once again cuts down on aggressive rock'n'roll and returns to
the moody darkness of Humbug (see
ʽMy Propellerʼ and all that follows), but this time, the darkness has been
shaped and beaten into a much more precise form — presuming memorable riffs and
evocative choruses, not to mention some very clever use of vocal harmonies. As
if to state that they no longer plant their trust in bashing the hell out of
everything, ʽDo I Wanna Know?ʼ opens the record with the sound of a drum
machine, which could just as easily have been a regular drum part, but the song
is not about drumming — it is about a dark night setting where the protagonist,
drunk, bitter, depressed, but still retaining some cool, reflects on whether
there is still a chance at reconnecting with his other half, and it works
astonishingly well, with the feeling perfectly expressed by the melodic hard
riffage and the contrast between Turner's irritated, sarcastic solo parts in
the verses and the group's choir harmonies on the "Crawling back to
you..." chorus.
Pretty much the same mood permeates the rest of
the tracks, so that the entire album shares this nocturnal mood — not a dreamy,
romantic, candle-lit night, but a bit of a werewolfish one, exacerbated by way
too many cups of coffee, cigarettes, and self-revving-up into a state of rather
inexplainable nervous tension. No other tune gets this more right than
ʽArabellaʼ. Starts out quietly, grim syncopated bassline against lonesome
guitar howls and hoots, then rapidly switches to «Sabbath» mode for a
threatening bridge where Turner's singing is performed in a call-and-response
pattern with the heavy guitar riff rather than in complete tandem with it, and
this helps make both sides more imposing. Technically, it's a love song, with
Alex serenading a mystical lady who "got a Seventies' head, but she's a
modern lover" — but arranged as a complex heavy rocker, giving a fairly brutal
edge to the romance.
Another excellent example — the aptly titled
ʽFiresideʼ, but, again, it's not about cuddling down by the fireside, it's
about how "Isn't it hard to make up your mind / When you're losing / And
your fuse is fireside?": a tense, paranoid rocker, driven mostly by acoustic guitar, which keeps ringing out
like an alarm system. The devil is in the tiny details — such as, for instance,
the extra alarm signal from the organ that gets turned on just as Alex switches
tonality on the third line of the verse. This sudden attention to subtle
detail, or, at least, to meaningful and immediately noticeable sudden detail,
is really a new turn for the Monkeys, as is a penchant for cleverer, ticklier riffs
— check out ʽKnee Socksʼ with its poppy melody, sounding a little like Suzanne
Vega with distortion, or the martial grunt of ʽI Want It Allʼ, which echoes Sabbath's
ʽChildren Of The Graveʼ, but with a psychedelic twist instead of an apocalyptic
one (with falsetto choruses and colorfully tinged lead guitar melting your mind
against the heavy riffage).
When they start sentimentalizing the mood and
slowing things down, nothing disastrous happens, either: ʽNo. 1 Party Anthemʼ
goes a bit too heavy on the "come on come on come on" refrain, but
the arrangement, the singing, and the vocal resolution of the chorus all gamble
on «grand» and end up winning the pot. On ʽMad Soundsʼ, they try their hand at
the good old R&B formula, and, astonishingly, it also works — with a long, subtle
buildup to the "ooh la la la"'s of the chorus, which they ironically
play upon in the lyrics: "...you just can't figure out what went wrong /
Then out of nowhere, somebodcy comes and hits you with a... / Ooh la la la, ooh
la la la...".
Of course, the Arctic Monkeys had been a
«midnight-oriented» band from the very start. And, of course, the Arctic
Monkeys never had, and still do not have, any grand, all-penetrating artistic
vision that could shake the foundations of one's existence. They started out as
relatively shallow hipsters, way too bent on proving their cool to have much
time left for anything else. But if AM
(their best album title so far, by the way), with its one-track orientation,
does not pretend to solving the problems of the universe any more than its
predecessors, there is at least nothing shallowly-hipsterish about it any
longer, or, at the very least, they have learned to make music that can be
enjoyed by a much wider audience than «cool people for the sake of coolness».
Jealous lovers, pissed-off losers, old-school power pop and hard rock fans, all
of those and other categories of listeners are bound to find something in
common with the spirit of these tunes.
Whether this enthusiastic thumbs up is going to be an
accidental exception or the start of a new, mature band cannot be predicted,
but I am fairly sure that this new «midnight rock» formula is viable and, with
the appropriate effort, could be advanced to even further heights. Another
album like this and I might be joining Gordon Brown on account of this band.
Check "AM" (CD) on Amazon
Check "AM" (MP3) on Amazon
Well, I thought this one would get thrashed to pieces on this site... I subscribe to the first paragraph (and to most of what comes next), except that it started clicking with me on Suck It And See - which I believe is every bit as good as AM. Suddenly - it's good songs all around. I find the sound extremely seductive, and the songwriting is stylish and strong. "Knee Socks" is so infectious it hurts and the cover of "I Wanna Be Yours" just oozes sexiness. Great record.
ReplyDeleteThis album came about as a direct result from touring with the Black Keys the previous year. Which is why it sounds exactly like a Black Keys record (which I'm surprised you didn't point out, George). Good stuff!
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