Song, by Toad

Hmm, you know, I actually quite like this.  Sometimes people tell you something is shite so often that by the time you actually listen to it you expectations are really rather low, and actually you are pleasantly surprised.

The Arctic Monkeys started a little like The Streets as the voice of everyday life in Britain and almost instantly tipped just the wrong side of whatever fine line it was that they were apparently treading.  Somehow, both bands ended up sounding just a little bit too self-conscious, pretty much the moment we became aware of them, almost as if the labels they were given upon their breakthroughs immediately throttled the relaxed spontaneity you need to pull off the particular brand of artful social realism* they employed.  Certainly they both lost their early casual looseness and their music became just a little awkward and contrived.

As such, the departure into stylised, cinematic croonery with the Last Shadow Puppets seemed to be a much needed break for Alex Turner, bringing a little more freedom and spontaneity to his music.  Stylistically this album is a pretty clear mixture of the Arctic Monkeys’ indie rock and the swooning orchestral pop of the Last Shadow Puppets and it works pretty well, generally.

I am not going to go and insist that this record recaptures all of their earlier zest, but it’s not too bad either.  Certainly I think the inflections of Shadow Puppetry improve on the music of their previous album, although that was often closer to this kind of sound than you’d think.

I look back at liking the first Streets album, and the first Arctics album as well, and they both seem kind of like guilty pleasures in retrospect.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe because they were on the edge of what I like and both so quickly tipped over the edge into territory I really don’t like that I allow that to influence my memories of the stuff I actually did enjoy. It all reminds me of liking albums so very much of their time that out of that context it can feel like you were just a little duped.  Play by Moby might be another example – music of a certain style that crosses over just enough to be embraced by people not traditonally in that particular audience, and even small changes seem to remind you of that, because the same balancing act can be next to impossible to pull off again. I like all of those albums, but I feel slightly weird about all three.

So, not really an informative album review I’m afraid, more tangential verbal diarrhoea.  It’s not a bad record, this, I’m actually kind of enjoying it.  No more than that, I’m afraid, but that’s still more than I really expected.

Arctic Monkeys – My Propeller

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Arctic Monkeys – Secret Door

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*Yes, I know that this is pretty much a contradiction in terms.

What a brilliant burst of cod-spy thriller soundtrack lounge croon bombastic orchestrated melodramatic bedlam this is.  The Arctic Monkeys last album was something of a damp squib really, although it contained a little bit of quite decent material, but it seemed like a band who just made an album without really thinking about why.

Listening to that album, one track which really struck me was this one:

Arctic Monkeys – The Bakery

At the time I thought ‘bugger me, Alex must be developing a bit of a Richard Hawley fetish’.  Both being from Sheffield this didn’t seem too far-fetched, and as much as I was left underwhelmed by most of Flourescent Adolescent, it piqued my interest for their next album.  I never expected this though!

Instead of a slightly 50s-sounding Monkeys album Turner and his pal Miles Kane have gone all the way and more, producing an album a radio DJ apparently described as “more Scott Walker than Scott Walker”.  I don’t really know much Scott Walker, so I couldn’t tell you how much sense this makes.  Quite how they recorded this in a fortnight is beyond me, but hearing something like this, even a scratch and hiss fanatic like myself finds himself thinking ‘now that’s what Big Production is for’.  It could be the soundtrack to a dozen stylish sixties films, or a dozen spy movies: theatrical, grandiose and really ambitious.

It’s brilliantly successful too, a real rattling, swooning pleasure to listen to, although I have a minor, nagging caveat.  For all the music of the Artctic Monkeys sometimes left me a little cold, it was generally saved by Alex Turner’s baldly honest lyrics and incredibly deft turn of phrase.  The turn of phrase is still clearly at his command here, but the writing is much more artful, which sometimes makes this album feel like more of a stylistic exercise than a heartfelt musical one.  They are exploring, and fair play to them, few bands could manage anything half so inventive, nor so enormously excellent, but there are times when it seems slightly more like a project and less like a mission.

The Last Shadow Puppets – My Mistakes Were Made For You
The Last Shadow Puppets – I Don’t Like You Anymore

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It’s not often that things make their way straight from the breathless email of a marketing monkey to my inbox to the blog without a lot more time spent letting things sink in. In this case however I’ve been curious for news about this project for some time but always assumed it would be one of those major label projects that would bring the Web Sherriff down on my head like a sack of spanners.

You can imagine, therefore, my surprise and delight when an email not only plugging this band, but also containing two promotional mp3s officially sanctioned the the Enforcers of teh Internetz, landed in the Toadly inbox.

The Last Shadow Puppets are a side project of Miles Kane from The Rascals (who?) and Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys, and inspired by a mutual love of Scott Walker and early Bowie. The album itself is recorded with a full 22-piece orchestra, so quite how representative these acoustic versions will be is anyone’s guess, but it’ll be out on Monday (except in the States – ha ha!) so you can judge for yourselves.

I tend to waver on the Arctic Monkeys. They have some great songs, but the last album didn’t really excite me all that much and, if I’m honest, the first one took me quite a while to get into as well. Alex Turner is undeniably a really gifted lyricist though, and from the interviews I have read seems like an intelligent, inquisitive fellow so I have high hopes for The Age of the Understatement. Turner seems to have been developing an interest in 50s rock ‘n’ roll recently: something of an affinity for the same influences that inform Richard Hawley. Basically, this is a good thing, and if this project gives him the chance to throw off the shackles of the often mealy pub-rock of the Monkeys then this can only be good news.

The Last Shadow Puppets – My Mistakes Were Made For You
The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of Understatement

That’s rhetorical. The answer, presumably, is yes. Richard Hawley is an odd man to be slowly turning into an indie hero, but it appears that this is just what he is doing.

Spells playing guitar with The Longpigs and Pulp add indie heft to his past, but it is definitely as a songwriter that he has slowly but surely made a pretty significant mark on the music world. Mrs. Toad spends a lot of time ferreting about on the Guardian website and she assures me that the Graun writers froth over the man with an enthusiasm bordering on indecency. Micah P. Hinson covered one of his songs on his last UK tour, which I thought was really odd for a tortured Texan troubadour. How on earth had he come across Richard Hawley?

Then here I was listening to an Arctic Monkeys song which popped up on my randomiser and what do I hear but tones of Richard Hawley’s unmistakable 50s guitar sound. The Sheffield scene is buzzing at the moment, with the likes of The Long Blondes, The Arctics and Milburn in recent years all adding to the rock solid cred of legends like The Wedding Present and Pulp. That said, although the indie rock scene is well represented, I was considering doing a bit of a post on the likes of Hawley and the brilliant Monkey Swallows the Universe to highlight the slightly alternative side to this boom in Steel City music. Wrongly, it appears, I got the impression that everyone thought Sheffield was rock and that these more interesting groups were not quite being given their due.

It appears I was a little out with that assumption and, rather wonderfully, there seems to be a growing interest in genuinely eccentric music that makes a real effort to follow its own course. Music that isn’t railroaded into the classic indie 3-4 minute guitar track with as good a hook and as catchy a chorus as you can write. Not that I don’t enjoy a lot of the radio fodder, but it is really nice to see The Arctic Monkeys paying homage to Hawley and not vice versa and reflects well on both bands. Viva iconoclasm!

Arctic Monkeys – The Bakery
Richard Hawley – Just Like the Rain
Monkey Swallows the Universe – Sheffield Shanty

The shortlist is a little depressing.  I remember when the Mercurys were not just a Radio 1 playlist on a really shit day at work.  To be entirely fair to them, there are a couple of pretty decent picks, but they are somewhat drowned out by the stampede of abysmal cuntery from the likes of Britain’s very own walking ear infection, Amy Winehouse, and her depressingly uninspiring ilk.

Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare – Just not a very good album.  There are some good bits, some cracking lyrics and some great riffs.  But this record is patchy at best, and they are verging dangerously close to becoming the new Oasis.
Dizzee Rascal – Maths and English – Token music for Blicks (please imagine heavy South African accent when pronouncing this).
The View – Hats Off to the Buskers – Token music for complete and utter cunts.
Bat For Lashes – Fur and Gold – This is not new, and it is shit.  Imagine a super-group made up of the best bits of Bjork, the best bits of Belly and the best bits of Portishead.  Then imagine the leftovers.  This is them.
Klaxons – Myths of the Near Future – Myths of Tolerability, more like. Nu-rave.  Gosh yes, dance music with a bit of guitars is definitely a brand new genre, never heard of before and entirely justifying its own classification and hysterical shrieking about the second coming.  Is this type of music not covered by the term ’shit’ already?
Jamie T – Panic Prevention – Anyone using initials in this manner is a twat.  Fucking grow up.  He may not be an irritating mockney twat, but with a handle like that he certainly bloody well sounds like one.
The Young Knives – Voices of Animals and Men – This album is really so medium I can’t even hate it.  In fact I can barely be arsed typing this.  This is a prize, you fuckwits, not just a pat on the back for turning up.
Maps – We Can Create
Fionn Regan – The End of History – The inclusion of these two gives me a little hope not everything is turning into the NME Awards of Empty Indie Hysteria.
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford – Basquiat Strings – If you look, there’s always a nominee at the Mercurys designed to show just how cultured, obscure and judicious the panel are.  They also act like some token ‘intellectual’ inclusion to demonstrate the open-minded and inclusive nature of the awards that, much like the token ‘urban’ nominee, nevertheless completely fails to give the impression that anyone on the panel actually ever listens to either record.
Amy Winehouse – Back to Black – If there was an award for Punchably Unbearable Self-Obsessed Twattery it would probably have to be named after this raggedy old trout.  If you ever wanted to imagine what a sexually transmitted disease looked like in human form, you couldn’t go too far wrong if you directed someone to a picture of The Winehouse.  Provided you warned them that the emotional damage caused by gazing on her skeletal figure, gurning puss and avian-beaked visage was likely to require years of therapy to expunge, of course.  A one-woman erection assassin.
New Young Pony Club – Fantastic Playroom – Another decent choice.  Not my flavour exactly, but at least a little interesting.

So, I don’t know, what do you think?  Dross like Bat For Lashes, The View and Jamie T and the rather dubious selection of the Arctic Monkeys make it look a bit like a list put together on autopilot, without any real thought applied.  On the other hand, there are at least a couple of interesting choices.  NME be shamed, you have been out-rock ‘n’ rolled by the Mercury Prize!

Maps – You Don’t Know Her Name[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/3/28/933060/Maps-YouDontKnowHerName.mp3]
New Young Pony Club – Fan[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/3/28/933060/NewYoungPonyClub-Fan.mp3]
Fionn Regan – Put a Penny in the Slot[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/3/28/933060/FionnRegan-PutaPennyintheSlot.mp3]
Arctic Monkeys – Put Your Dukes Up John[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/3/28/933060/TheArcticMonkeys-PutYourDukesUpJohn.mp3]

A couple of mp3 files pinched from The Pelican’s Perch and Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good.  Sorry lads, hope you don’t mind!

I never know what I think of the Arctic Monkeys. The first album didn’t really grab me, although I loved the lyrics, until a good friend told me to go back and listen again because it was brilliant. I duly did so, loved it for a good while, and then slowly cooled again.

The first couple of tracks from this one had me all excited, thinking this could be really brilliant. I heard the album, was disappointed, changed my mind to think it was brilliant and now I’m not so sure again. I think they’re like this, the Arctic Monkeys: sort of a permanent oscillation. They’re way better than a good band, but nothing like as good as a great one, and as soon as Unbridled Rock ‘n’ Roll Joy Toad has a few beers and starts to get too full of himself, Sensible Worldly Toad arches a quizzical eyebrow, sips a gin and takes an ironic draw on a big fat Cuban. That said, if Worldly Toad gets a tad too ironically superior for his own good, Rock Toad turns up the stereo, pisses on his shoes and dances all night with the prettiest girls in the joint.

So, expect more of Alex Turner’s genuinely superior lyrical talent. Expect more choppy, joyful guitar melodies that pep up their classic indie rock sound with funky changes and danceable bounciness. Expect a few more melancholy introspective numbers. Expect to be able to play this at virtually any party and have people love it. But don’t expect to be blown away by the brilliance.

I wish I could remember where I read it, but someone recently said that Oasis were the death of indie because you had White Van Man and introverted indie obsessives in love with the same music. I can’t quite articulate why this meant indie was dead, but it feels right nonetheless. The Arctic Monkeys have a similar problem – I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor was a perfect embodiment of this phenomenon. Please don’t tell me these lads are the new Oasis.

So to, erm, recap that rather incoherent collection of random thoughts, do not expect an unprecedented maelstrom of indie genius, because for all the Arctic Monkeys are really good, they definitely aren’t great. I sometimes find myself blaming them for this, because they’re so close it can be frustrating that they seem to never quite take that last step, but ultimately if you ignore the hype and fuss surrounding them then you can really enjoy a solid, enjoyable and intelligent addition to any true indie kid’s record collection.

Arctic Monkeys – Brianstorm Alright, confession time: who else out there instinctively changed the name of that song to ‘Brainstorm’ when it first came out, assuming that the person who ripped the first surreptitious copy off the radio had made a typo? Just me then? Arse.
Arctic Monkeys – Balaclava

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