Arctic Monkeys Humbug (Domino)
3/5
By: Matt Tomiak
I don’t think we’re in Hillsborough any more, Toto...
In last year’s memoir The Life and Times of a Rock Star Fantasist, Huddersfield-born author Simon Armitage reels off a list of canonical bands from northern England. After discussing all the usual Mancunian and Liverpudlian suspects, he reaches Sheffield’s major players. There’s the Human League, of course. Pulp, natch. “And maybe Arctic Monkeys,” Armitage ponders. “If they keep it up.”
The question of whether or not the Arctic Monkeys can indeed “keep it up” has been one of the most vexed in British popular music over the last few years. After the fresh-faced Sheffield foursome’s all-conquering debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not brilliantly showcased close-to-home loves, hates and passions just like mine (and judging by the record breaking first-week sales, plenty of other people’s too), 2007’s tempestuous, fractured follow-up Favourite Worst Nightmare reflected the disorientating effects of fame and fortune.
The Badlands-flavoured stoner-rock of LP no. 3 Humbug marks a distinctive third phase in the Monkeys’ evolution; dominated by Morricone-hued atmospherics, sledgehammer riffs and a powerhouse performance from drummer Matt Helders, this phase sounds like dusty highways, bleached cattle skulls and sinister truckers’ bars. Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme is on production duties, and the majority of these tracks are borne out of the vast expanses of the Great Plains rather than the backstreets of South Yorkshire.
This is not to say that Alex Turner’s lyrical flair has been entirely compromised due to the lads trading the M62 for the Mojave Desert. As far as confectionary-as-blatant-sexual-analogy tracks go (“my thoughts got rude as you picked and chewed on the last of your pick n’ mix”) the sly leer of ‘Crying Lightning’ totally wipes the floor with 50 Cent’s ‘Candy Shop.’
‘Cornerstone’ is this album’s ‘Mardy Bum’; against a hallucinatory jangle bringing to mind The Stone Roses’ ‘Waterfall’, Turner narrates a surreal, lovelorn trek around old hangouts, haunted by the memory of an old flame. But its the beefy BRMC churn of ‘Potion Approaching’ and spacey, Mercury Rev-ish ‘Secret Door’ that define this album.
So ‘Humbug’ is a solid enough addition to the Monkey’s canon, and yet its testament to their own sky-high early standards that it feels slightly disappointing to find nothing here to match the jaw-dropping immediacy of ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ or ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’. Whilst the Arctic Monkeys might not have exactly sold their souls at the crossroads, there’s a nagging feeling that they’ve lost some of that early magic.
Artists in this article: Arctic Monkeys
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