Album Review: Arctic Monkeys' return 'not bad, but deeply baffling'
It’s as yet unclear how substantial a chunk of the Arctic Monkeys fan base has been clamouring for a lounge-pop concept record with 1970s jazz inflections.
But, whether or not they asked for it, that’s what they are getting, as the Sheffield group end a five year recording silence with their most deeply baffling collection yet.
Alex Turner was always too multifaceted a songwriter to pull an Oasis and churn out replicas of the jittery Britrock his band debuted with 2005’s I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor.
But who imagined his quest for new musical vistas would lead us here: to a surreal, easy listening homage distinguished by the frontman’s crooning style and an almost total absence of choruses?
One possible inspiration is creative frustration, with Turner admitting that he’s fallen out of love with indie rock dynamics.
“The guitar had lost its ability to give me ideas. Every time I sat with a guitar I was suspicious of where it was gonna go,” he told the BBC.
I had a pretty good idea of what I might be which is completely contrary to what I felt when I sat at the piano.
Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is not a terrible album, exactly.
In fact, contemporary notions of “good” and “bad” don’t apply to ‘Star Treatment’, which features stream-of-conscious vocals from Turner against a backdrop of jazz-club parpings.
Nor are normal critical standards much use assessing the hip-hop tinged ‘One Point Perspective’ or ‘Four Out Of Five’, a woozy commentary on the standard metric of record reviews.
We’re out in deep space here — and, for better or worse, there is little familiar or comforting to grab on to.
Beloved bands have a long history of surprising fans with a bonkers mid-career LP.
Whether Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is Arctic Monkey’s Kid A – or just a woolly-brained folly, is probably too soon to say.
All that can be stated with certainty is that anyone expecting bouncy indie-pop is likely to be baffled/underwhelmed/ pleasantly surprised.
The response will depend on the individual in question.
