ARCTIC MONKEYS – AM
01. Do I Wanna Know?
02. R U Mine?
03. One for the Road
04. Arabella
05. I Want It All
06. No. 1 Party Anthem
07. Mad Sounds
08. Fireside
09. Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?
10. Snap Out Of It
11. Knee Socks
12. I Wanna Be Yours
Twelve songs – 41 minutes and 57 seconds of great and gloomy music – that is what we get from the brand new ARCTIC MONKEYS album AM, inspired by Velvet Undergrounds VU and released on 9 September 2013 via Domino. “I actually stole it from the Velvet Underground, I’ll just confess that now and get it out of the way. The ‘VU’ record, obviously,” said Alex Turner. It is already their 5th studio album and was produced by James Ford and co-produced by Ross Orton at the Sage & Sound Recording Studio in L.A. and Rancho De La Luna in California. Also the record features guest appearances from Josh Homme (QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE) and Pete Thomas, who plays the drums for Elvis Costello.
As the quality of the ARCTIC MONKEYS LPs decreased from record to record, it’s an incredible surprise that AM manages to combine different styles that the band already applied in a fantastic and unique way, for instance 70s rock with R&B and hip hop beats. AM is energetic, quite varied, gloomy and according to Alex Turner influenced by bands and artists like OUTKAST and BLACK SABBATH. What is probably different on this record is that there are more background vocals than on the others. Lyrically the album is not that surprising as it contains common topics like love, being drunk, high for example in I Wanna Be Yours „I wanna be your vacuum cleaner breathing in your dust, I wanna be your Ford Cortina, I won’t ever rust“ Only Knee Socks, one of the highlights of the record, is probably a weird title for a song, but however, the ARCTIC MONKEYS manage to not make “Like the beginning of Mean Street (movie by Martin Scorsese) you could be my baby” sound embarrassing, probably because it is the confidence Alex writes with. Another highlight of the record is doubtless the speed up track R U Mine.
AM is definitely one of the best ARCTIC MONKEYS Records so far. It shows them as a band, all their talent and all their experience and it is definitely one of those records every music lover should own. Hopefully there is lot more to come from the band.
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