I bought Arctic Monkey's third album a couple of months ago and it's been a current favorite ever since. If you're already a fan of the band, then you'll find that it's different. This album veers from the double-speed aggression of their previous two towards heavier and, generally, slower tempo songs. An eerie sound permeates the album, as the music takes on a darker tint, making it -I'll admit- less funky and upbeat. Though their new material lacks the propulsion I've been used to hearing from these chavs, it trades it in with a mature and sophisticated sound, reflected in Alex's low husky croons and in the turn toward experimentation, with the use of instruments like the haunted-house organ. The bitter witticism that majorly characterizes this English gutter-rock band has mounted into a "twisted and deranged" outlook that I, perhaps sadistically, appreciate. I think one of the band's major strengths lies in Alex's observational story-telling and cryptic style of wordplay. In the previous albums, his detail-rich tales are generally situated in the scum-ridden streets of England and it's working-class bars, depicting a uniquely British experience. This Dickensian realism is consistent in Humbug, but is imbued with a phantasm reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe's nightmarish sketches. Here's a song that directly comes to mind:
(Jeweler's Hands)
Fiendish wonder in the carnival's wake
Dull caresses once again irritate
Tread softly stranger
Move toward the danger that you seek
In the moonlight they're more thrilling those things that he knows
As he leads you through the grinning bubble blowers in the snow
Watching his exit was like falling off the ferry in the night
Another one of my favorites is this sweet love ballad:
(Cornerstone)
I thought I saw you in The Battleship but it was only a lookalike
She was nothing but a vision trick under the warning light
She was close, close enough to be your ghost
But my chances turned to toast when I asked her if I could call her your name
I thought I saw you in The Parrot's Beak messing with the smoke alarm
It was too loud for me to hear her speak and she had a broken arm
It was close, so close that the walls were wet
And she wrote it out in Letraset
"No, you can't call me her name"
Tell me where's your hiding place
I'm worried I'll forget your face
I've asked everyone
I'm beginning to think I imagined you all along
I saw your sister in The Cornerstone on the phone to the middle man
When I saw that she was on her own I thought she might understand
She was close, well you couldn't get much closer
She said "I'm really not supposed to but yes, you can call me anything you want"
Alex Turner at the show I attended a couple of weeks ago (got the pic from a website)
Book I'm reading: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
