Arctic Monkeys
Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)
Arctic Monkeys crashed onto the scene in 2006 with the electric Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. 20 year old songwriter Alex Turner, an unassuming Sheffield lad with ambitions to study English at university, was lauded by both critics and music lovers alike for his clever wordplay and ability to lyrically paint a detailed picture of life and humanity. The band themselves were given great praise for their garage rock sound.
According to critics, their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, saw the band refine their garage sound to make the music sound clearer and cleaner, while sacrificing none of the swagger, aggression and cleverness of the first album.
Only being aware of lead single Brianstorm, I wanted to sample the rest of the album. As someone who really enjoyed their first album, and as someone who knows the more experimental road the group has taken recently, I was keen to find out if it matched that critical assessment.
The Album
Opening track Brianstorm is a perfect package of everything that makes Arctic Monkeys such an exciting band, both on record and live; a maelstrom of guitar noise created by a searing riff, pacy hi-hat work driving the tempo while Turner's witty observations of a smooth industry type wearing a "t-shirt and tie combination". There's more pacy hi-hat present on Teddy Picker, another sharp track with roots in punk. (In fact, drummer Matt Helders is a star on this record, frequently providing real impetus to the song with his lightning quick drumming). Helders joins Turner in lead vocals on tracks D is for Dangerous which is yet another example of the band's roots in "post-punk" music.
Around this point the album starts to take a turn into more mature territory; while the driving riffs, aggressive sound and slick drumming remain, Turner's lyrics become comments on growing up and getting boring (Fluorescent Adolescent), relationship breakups (Do Me A Favour) and infidelity (The Bad Thing). The great thing about Turner's lyrics are that they tell a story perfectly without resorting to cliche or suffering from Lorde syndrome (i.e trying to prove how smart the writer is by saying something "deep" that is actually meaningless dreck).
Perhaps in light of the maturity of the lyrics, those three songs also signify a different musical approach. Fluorescent Adolescent harkens back to the good old days of Britpop, with the pleasant sound of a penny arcade keyboard (possibly played on guitar) and a careful, melodic riff structure. Do Me A Favour eschews the hi-hat heavy sound for tom rhythms, and the distorted riffs for surf guitar style noodling, only bringing in the heavy artillery for the closing moments of the track. The Bad Thing shows a debt to mod revival bands like The Jam, managing to be a punk song that isn't really punk at all; the riffs are jangly and the drums provide a steady bedrock for the rest of the song.
Closing track 505 also displays a growing musical maturity. It builds from a low-energy, largely vocally driven beginning, gradually increasing in volume and complexity until, finally, Turner's impassioned cry explodes the song into life. In something of a rarity for the album, it also features a tasteful lead break that simply follows the melody. Then, as quickly as it arrived, that full-band explosion ends, and the tasteful lead break plays us out, somewhat calmly, to the album's close.
The Verdict
Favourite Worst Nightmare is an improvement on the band's first album. The clever lyrics, wordplay and observations on youth that dotted Whatever People Say I Am....are here as well. However, Alex Turner shows, for the first time, his skill in writing songs that aren't necessarily relatable to him, but are certainly relatable to the audience. That maturity extends itself to the band's music, where there is more variety in structure, style and musicianship.
Arguably, the band has shown a great deal of musical progression since then, adding a slew of new influences to their sound. Turner is still a great songsmith, and the band are still capable of creating interesting (and good) music. Listening to Favourite Worst Nightmare hammers home the message that their recent work lacks the energy and charisma of their earlier efforts. There's a thrilling quality to the band's work on this album that isn't present on their more recent, polished efforts. Even though this album itself was more polished than the first, it retained much of the debut album's energy, which makes it compelling.
For that reason, I definitely recommend this album, because it represents the junction between youthful exuberance and musical maturity.
My rating: *** and a half
Standout Tracks
Brianstorm
Fluorescent Adolescent
Do Me A Favour
Tomorrow I'm taking on some Kanye. I'm scared.
No comments:
Post a Comment