I had my reservations initially as for me the album just, narrowly failed to take off on an initial listen. Maybe I didn't appreciate the fuzzy guitars properly, or maybe the laconicly drawled vocals just didn't hit the mark. Perhaps the Deep Purply organ bits were a bit derivative, or perhaps I couldn't quite get the way they build a song up, slow it down, let rip again, slow down again.... but one thing I did realise on my first encounter was that the drums are BRILLIANT, big noisy almost Glam Rock in places, smashing!
So I gave it another go, listening to the whole album again in a darkened room with a glass of whisky in my hand and it began to make sense. There are more ideas in here than in a career load of Arctic Monkey albums.
This is mature music, discerning music, cerebral music even. But it wigs out as well. All the pieces in themselves are interesting and well worth listening to in isolation but the album should be listened to as a whole as it comes together in a coherent and heavily melodic fashion. It's prog, it's psychedelic, it's heavy, it's beautiful! In fact this is the sort of album you will put on repeat for 4 or 5 listens at a time as there is so much in here.
(Worth getting the bonus album for the three extra tracks as well)