Humbug, the Arctic Monkey’s third album is the band’s darkest to date. Their trademark style of new-wave, choppy indiepop is undoubtedly still there but it has been significantly beefed up with a mature, epic edge.
Moody and grand-scale recording locations in the US, such as the Mojave desert and Los Angeles as well as co-production by Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, certainly help to make their sound somehow larger.
It is unfortunate though that they haven’t produced the lyrics to match this epic sound. Opening track ‘My Propeller’ is a case in point. Its moody, gothic sounding guitar riffs and military drumming are somehow at logger heads with cheeky-chappy, double-entendre lyrics such as “Coax me out, my love, sink into tomorrow. Coax me out, my love, and have a spin of my propeller.”
Another where lyrics seem at odds with the band’s grand sound is ‘Pretty Visitors’, where the epic-organ intro is wasted by lyrics such as, “what came first, the chicken or the dickhead?” Er, not sure and don’t care.
Although it has lyrical faults and is not packed with ten perfect songs Humbug is no dud. While there are fillers that wear a little thin such as ‘The Jeweller’s Hands’ and ‘Dance Little Liar’ overall the maturity across the album is to be welcomed and the bulk of the tracks are pretty good.
Among the best is first single ‘Crying Lightning’, which starts like a cover of Iggy Pop’s ‘Passengers’ before the guitar riffs branch out into something far more complex and satisfying. ‘Cornerstone’ is another quality track, among the slowest on the album, but showing a good glimpse of how the band is progressing.
Humbug is also an interesting album, showing a band embracing and enjoying the challenge of moving its sound on and is far more ambitious than the rubbish being churned out by fellow festival favourites such as Keane and Kasabian.
7.5/10
by Joe Lepper, Aug 2009
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