Arctic Monkeys
Suck It and See
Domino/EMI
It’s been half a decade since Arctic Monkeys’ event of a debut album, and still they seem young, bratty, and precocious. They also seem like survivors, riding out the hype-backlash cycle better than most. Maybe that’s because the songs are naggingly catchy, stubbornly durable, and dripping with caustic lyrics. Modest and retro-tinted, the songs function best as a shrugging answer to so much rock that came before.
On this fourth album, the band revels in the rough-riding, subversive sound of legends like Motörhead, The Who, and Black Sabbath. A few songs even recall Guided By Voices. Stoner-rock icon Josh Homme may have produced the Monkeys’ previous LP Humbug, but this one was done with James Ford of dance duo Simian Mobile Disco. Yet it’s musty and intimate, as if cut in some dim basement bedroom. Between Alex Turner’s old man’s voice and the erratic jangle and jostle of the music, there’s still something appealingly askew about this band.
The guitars are an easy plus, slipping from honeyed to molten without stodginess. ‘Brick by Brick’ and the lead single ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’ are more muscular than others, whereas ‘Love is a Laserquest’ is nearly a ballad and the album is bookended by solid guitar-pop nuggets. The piss-take element to the lyrics can by turns amuse and annoy, depending on one’s stomach for references to ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ and ‘Macarena’. Some lines are utter clunkers – “Called up to listen to the voice of reason and got the answering machine” – but Turner is usually on to the next thought before we can muster a groan. The lyrics of ‘Library Pictures’ swing from ambitious to lazy in a matter of minutes, and Turner can be just as unreliable.
Arctic Monkeys embrace and distort rock’s long lineage, coming out with songs as indebted yet irreverent as ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’. (“What are you waiting for? / Singing another fucking shalalala”). The band’s rampant unruliness aside, though, my favourite song here is the title track. It’s straighter and more romantic, while still cheeky and self-aware. It’s nice to see that Turner can manage both.
Doug Wallen