Suck It And See [CD]

I was never really sure about the Arctic Monkeys until this album. Over five years ago when they came onto the scene I thought they were heavily overrated and I still stand by the opinion that they were overhyped with typical ridiculous NME proclamations like 'best band since The Beatles etc'. Since then, I've listened to their work and it has grown on me over the years, but still sceptical of their ability to add a lot more to their songwriting. Well this album shows me that there is a lot of life in this band yet and that they're not one trick ponies. There have been some mumblings from fans that this album doesn't nearly match their first two but I completely disagree. Suck It And See is the album that brings a lot more emotional depth to this band, and for a bunch of 25 years old, it's amazing to see the maturity of these songs compared to the relentless and raw first two albums. Albeit those two albums are fantastic, but Suck It And See brings more qualities to the band. Alex Turner croons his lyrics and is arguably his finest vocal performance yet, and you get echoes of Morrissey in this album also. For the most part, the sound is less raw and more sophisticated, taking a few ideas from the mixed bag of an album Humbug. The title track provides the best example while arguably being the band's most beautiful sounding song yet. For me, this is their best album yet. And they're still a young band so whatever they come up with next is going to be fascinating.

The Arctic Monkeys rose to prominence with a style of music that was fairly upbeat, lively and more rock orientated and with each new album they move further away from their early template, shedding fans with each new release along the way.

With the band's previous album, Humbug, the music became more difficult and experimental, with production duties being handled in part by legendary QOTSA/Kyuss musician Josh Homme.

For fans who were very turned off by Humbug, this latest album, Suck It And See is not the glorious return to the style of their debut album that you may be hoping for.

The musical direction suggested by excellent single `Don't Sit Down `Cause I Moved Your Chair,' and the drummer-singing pre-release track `Brick By Brick,' may have been misleading as the overall tone is less rock orientated than previous Arctic Monkeys material.

The album rather, is a mixture of the slower, more ballad style material such as Alex's solo work and Arctic Monkeys works like the B Side `The Bakery,' or `505,' from Favourite Worst Nightmare, with the experimental style found on Humbug (here especially on tracks such as the weird `Library Pictures,' and on `All My Own Stunts' where Josh Homme makes his fifth guest vocal appearance with the band)

Cleaner, more acoustic or quiet tracks such as `Reckless Serenade,' and `The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala,' form the majority of the album and there is even a reworking of Alex's solo ballad from the Submarine EP `Piledriver Waltz.'

Ignoring musical direction however, the album is very strong, with a diverse and musically interesting set of songs with the same vocal and lyrical style and quality you can always find in Arctic Monkeys music.

Overall, this album is worth checking out if you are a fan of everything the band do, and are happy with their progression and shifts in direction over the years, but I would not recommend it to fans who vastly prefer the style found on Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not because this album is perhaps the polar opposite of that album, where a consistent set of sharp and direct songs are replaced with either subtle and ponderous or just downright weird ones.

I really liked the first two albums by this band. Crazy guitar riffs, deranged drum solos, witty lyrics that you could relate to, even though they were by a 19 year old guy from Sheffield (I live in East London and am twice his age). In the saturated music market, they were original.

The third album split opinion big time, and this album, to me anyway, appears to be a continuation of what began on Humbug.

A lot of journalists etc state that a band needs to 'grow' and 'mature'. Why? Isn't it enough that a band makes fantastic music that makes you enjoy your life more? Do I care that they aren't seen to be 'evolving'? I don't care at all. Good music is good music. By changing their original formula, this band aren't as good as they used to be. They used to have an original sound, now they sound like a lot of other bands. Don't get me wrong, this offering qualifies as a very very good indie album. It's just that it doesn't make your hairs stand on end like some of their early tracks used to do.

Songs like Library Pictures and All My Own Stunts will no doubt remind people of the type of music that they used to do. I'd be happy with an album full of songs like that.

Overall a great album, but what's wrong with a band having it's own sound? It never did Status Quo any harm, and look at their longevity.