Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

Fri 18th Sep, 2009 in Music Reviews

The third album from Sheffield’s finest chilly primates is anything but a Scrooge, and the only Humbuggery you’re willing to encounter is the insanely awesome combination that is Alex Turner and Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme.

While it can be said that practically anything Josh Homme touches turns to solid gold, this marriage of musical minds is an indie-head’s favourite wet dream. More slickly produced than their thrashy debut Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, and more diverse than 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare, Humbug is a beautifully crafted journey between sentimentality and all out rock, with a lashing of stoner grunge to taste. Where Favourite Worst Nightmare failed was the monotony of the tracks, the same formula becoming tiresome and uninspired. Turner’s lyrical mastery is at it’s cynical best, all set to an array of soundscapes from a band at its peak.

Album opener My Propeller is perhaps the most inventive use of innuendo and metaphor in modern music to date. All that talk of sticky keys at the onset of the record displays a side to the band we have been yet to hear. Poor Alex Turner can’t get his ‘propeller’ to spin all on his lonesome.

Lead single Crying Lightning is a dirty, dark and delicious track, and a QOTSA Homme-age (get it?) in the form of a spine-tingling guitar solo. And the beauty of it is that it does not rely upon the usual garage rawness that has attracted the Monkeys’ previous singles such attention. Other highlights include the stumbling march of Secret Door, where we hear Turner get his echo on. And it includes the words “phantasm” and “giggling along”. Priceless. Personal favourite Potion Approaching is the fifty/fifty blend of Homme and Turner, right down to the Rated R guitar riffs and the abrupt tempo changes. Also see Dangerous Animals.

Touted to be the next single lifted from the album, Cornerstone is a gorgeous ballad, singing oh-so innocently about the many lookalikes of a lost love. Lines such as “I smelt you on the seatbelt”, and “I elongated my lift home” are sure to re-win the hearts of girls the world over. Pretty Visitors is an experiment in Matt Helders’ drum destruction, whilst fuzzy guitar toys around spooky droning and chanting. And, unlike previous efforts, the closing track The Jeweller’s Hands is sufficient in rounding off what has been a superbly created album, and rolls in nicely to the subsequent listens.

While Turner has always been delightfully descriptive and (sometimes) sour in his lyrics, he is not the only one to boast on Humbug. Jamie Cook’s manipulation of guitar sound transforms from track to track, and Nick O’Malley’s bass-walking is given a wider stage to shine from. Helder sounds as though he may have grown a third arm over the duration of recording. With a band so young and abundant in talent, such wise moves considering masterful production and collaboration will continue to elevate Arctic Monkeys into the echelons of premium grade music.