Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Album Review: Arctic Monkeys - Suck It and See



This shall be a difficult task for me, I'm a huge Arctic Monkeys fan so theres going to be a little bias to whats written, not too much but to call this an unbias review would be a load of shit. This is their fourth album, I love the first three with Favourite Worst Nightmare being my favourite. The last album Humbug totally moved away from the faster sound of the first two, showing that they were maturing in their music more and more (with the help of Josh Homme). I still think Humbug is there worst release as it moved away from the raw, "Play as fast as we can" attitude that were probably my favourite parts of the band, there were teasing moments that they were to continue this on Humbug particularly with the song Pretty Visitors however it was just a slower, maturer album.

This one takes them to another level of maturity, the guitar sound is more refined, the drums move away from the usual sound of up-tempo to a slower but booming sound. This is definitely another loud album, but again everything about it is much more refined, perhaps even too refined for my liking, the lack of rawness to the sound  on this album is a real shame as they're trying to become somewhat of an overproduced rock band now, when before they seemed to be all about making songs fast, loud and about chavy issues.

Another thing is that of the lyrics, with the maturity comes the change in lyrics, the sense of these dudes being tracksuit wearing chavs is gone now, not really even a hint of what was there before a shame really when this was some of my favourite parts of the album and what's been replaced is kind of a mash up of weird "trying too hard" to be young lyrics which I don't feel as strongly about.

While I seem to be beating up on them a little here I still enjoy the album enough, there's moments that show explosive drumming and heavier than usual guitar work things that you wouldn't expect from them but at the same time are quite cool. Alex Turner might not have the soaring yet straining vocals that were great, instead he's replaced them with a much more conservative quieter style and incredibly clean sounding something that he touched on Humbug.

Songs like Reckless Serenade, Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair and Black Treacle all are different to what has been done but still posses the Arctic Monkey's swagger that they've always shown no matter what the song is. Don't Sit Down creates a darker guitar sound, a heavier overall musical sound, combined with some soaring vocals create a pretty strong single. My favourite though would have to be Library Pictures as if reminds me the most of the Arctic Monkeys that I really enjoy, the drums are strong, the tempo at times teases you into the old days, Matt Helders shines the most of this song, my favourite member of the band also.

Overall this isn't the best release, in fact its probably my least favourite however the Arctic Monkeys have done enough to at least make a solid record for themselves, the mature sound seems to be what we shall expect from them from now on, although the teasing moments of old make me hope they'll attempt to combined the new and old sound on the next album.

Overall Rating: 8/10

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