Arctic Monkeys – Suck It and See

Alex Turner took his cat to the vet to get it neutered. The vet asked him “Is it a tom?” “No” replied Alex, “it’s here int’ box.”

I really like this band. They have achieved huge popularity – deservedly so - with their rhythmic stylings & acerbic wordplay. As less & less “alternative music” seems to be prevalent in the upper echelons of Pop Music’s Rich Tapestry these days they probably inhabit, in the UK at least, the role of “indie band that people who don’t like indie music like”. Hitting the ground running in 2006 with the amazing Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, they followed it up a year later with the equally (in some ways even more) impressive Favourite Worst Nightmare.

2009’s Humbug was a watershed for the band (what is it about third albums?). Abandoning the UK to cross the pond to record it, they enlisted Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme as co-producer. The result was somewhat deeper, slower, rockier; while not a disaster (and critically acclaimed, in some quarters more than their preceding efforts), to me something was missing. There were still great tunes - Cornerstone in particular - and the lyrics remained as sharp as ever but it seemed slightly less… well… charming, I think.

Expectations for the new platter to be “poppier”, as promised in interviews, were dampened somewhat by the pre-release of 2 tracks which both sit in the heavier end of their canon. Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair is squarely Humbug territory; over a guitar plucking a Peter Gunn riff Alex delivers a string of bad advice (“break a mirror, roll the dice, run with scissors through a chip-pan fire-fight”) before the song bursts into a heavy rock workout – not bad, but neither classic. The other pre-release track, Brick by Brick, doesn’t really sound like Arctic Monkeys at all. With drummer Matt Helders on lead vocals it’s musically early 70s and lyrically simple (“I wanna build you up… I wanna break you down… I wanna steal your soul… I wanna rock n roll” – you get the idea). There’s a slower mid-section which recalls Black Sabbath circa Masters of Reality (the best bit) but my initial reaction was underwhelmed.

However, I think that the little tinkers were toying with us! Suck It and See turns out to be, on the whole, joyous and upbeat. The band has, undoubtedly, matured – and the better aspects of Humbug which demonstrated their growth are still evident – but this album is a doggone great collection of pop songs; in fact, both of the aforementioned tracks grow in stature in the context of the album.

It opens with the cracking She’s Thunderstorms. The title might seem like a back-reference to the last album’s slightly lugubrious Crying Lightening but the delivery couldn’t be further away: poppy, boppy, with great images (“the heat starts growing horns”) and acknowledging the universal truth that there’s no quicker way of delivering a great melody than borrowing a little bit of the Theme from Fireball XL5 for your verses. If anything second track Black Treacle is even better – all “belly-button piercings” where “the sky looks sticky, more like black treacle than tar”– and tops out with a great guitar-led middle 8 and Alex feeling like “the Sundance Kid behind a synthesiser”.

The crown jewel in this collection, though, is probably the title track. It’s a ridiculously catchy love song -“you’re rarer than a can of dandelion & burdock and those other girls are just postmix lemonade” - with a couple of excellent chiming guitar solos, a chorus with a soupçon of Good Vibrations that you’ll be humming for hours and bound-to-be-endlessly-quoted lyrics (“that’s not a skirt, girl, that’s a sawn-off shotgun – and I can only hope you’ve got it aimed at me”). Actually, for all of the wit, metaphors and similes sprinkled across this album it’s notable that Turner also recognises the times when the simplest phrase works best: “you have got that face that just says “baby, I was made to break your heart”.” In olden days this would have been called a sure-fire hit; Suck It and See will be ringing exuberantly around the festival arenas this summer.

There’s plenty of other fetching pop to be found too. Closing track That’s Where You’re Wrong rounds things off with a jangly epic flourish, building its layers over a 2-chord tune. The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala, meanwhile, is a bittersweet tale of failed romance driven brilliantly by the rhythm section - on top form throughout - with a 60s-style “sha-la-la-la” chorus culminating in Alex’s exasperation: “What you waiting for? To sing another f***ing sha-la-la-la?” 

The pre-released tracks are not the only heavier ones on show here. All My Own Stunts is a mid-tempo rocker which features the returning Josh Homme on backing vocals (apparently!) and recounts “watching cowboy films on gloomy afternoons” before cajoling “put on your dancing shoes and show me what to do” (cowboys, along with stormy weather, are recurring motifs for Alex). Library Pictures is the shortest, sharpest, fastest track; closest in spirit to their debut, it’s driven by excellent rolling frenetic drumming.

Piledriver Waltz - another highlight - was included, nary a few weeks ago, on Alex’s solo soundtrack for the movie Submarine (previously reviewed). It’s been given a little touch of paint here & there but doesn’t differ vastly from the original version, remaining musically and lyrically complex with shifts in the time signature and allusions to “breakfast at the Heartbreak Hotel" where "your waitress was miserable and so was your food". It also offers somewhat better advice than Don't Sit Down… with “if you’re going to try and walk on water make sure you wear your comfortable shoes”.

Sequenced either side of Piledriver Waltz are a pair of tracks which also match the tone of Submarine. Reckless Serenade is mellow, leading off with a Pixiesesque bass-line before a circular guitar riff underpins another song of devotion. Love is a Laserquest is a further ballad, this one reminiscing about lost love with conviction that Alex will still be longing even if/when he’s turned into some latter-day Val Doonican (“when I'm pipe and slippers and rocking chair singing dreadful songs about something”).

The production is far crisper and cleaner than Humbug (James Ford is back in the reins solo this time), the album is fairly short (40 minutes) but that works in its favour and it’s well worth a listen – go on, suck it and see.

Suck it and See is released in the UK on June 6^th (USA June 7^th) on Domino Records.

Kate Bush – Director’s Cut

Any new album from National Treasure (©) Kate Bush is still rare enough to be considered an event. It’s been 6 years since she delivered the admirable Aerial and that was only the 8^th album in a 33 year career and came a full 12 years after her 7^th, 1993’s The Red Shoes (wow - what a lot of numbers!). With typical singularity (and as the title of this set alludes) we’re not actually getting new material this time around though; Director’s Cut consists of 11 songs culled from the aforementioned Red Shoes and its immediate predecessor, 1989’s The Sensual World, which Kate has decided to rework. All of the vocal & drum tracks are brand new (a wise choice with the latter as the Linn drums of the period have not aged too well), lyrics & arrangements have been tinkered with and 3 tracks have been completely rearranged & rerecorded.

It’s a fun, if pointless, game trying to figure out why Kate has decided on this course of action right now. Is it possibly a case of writer’s block? Unlikely, I think – she’s not under any pressure to release anything these days and there’s plenty of invention on display here. It seems that the copyright of the original recordings has reverted to her recently, but it also seems unlikely that this is the primary motive as: (a) her own label, Fish People, is still distributed by EMI and (b) she is so venerated, and her output so sparse, that it’s hard to imagine that she would have been prevented from releasing such a project if she had wanted to previously.

Perhaps the opener Flower of the Mountain could be an indication. This is a new, renamed version of the title track from Sensual World, a song originally built upon text taken from the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses but amended to Kate’s own lyrics when Joyce’s estate refused permission to use the extract. Apparently she was unhappy at her efforts (“Well, I’m not James Joyce am I?”), approached the estate again when coming to work on this project, was granted permission this time around and has restored the song to its original concept. Although the end result is a beautiful, swooning arrangement, I think she’s actually sold her own abilities short here: the original Sensual World managed to crystallise the mood of Ulysses succinctly in much the same way as the amazing Wuthering Heights did over 3 decades ago.

Aside from the above restoration I found most of the real interest here in the songs that were completely reworked. One of these is This Woman’s Work, possibly her most loved ballad of all and used so poignantly in NSPCC adverts. It was a brave decision to redefine this particular track and what is presented here is, in many ways, stunning: it’s been slowed, stretched, bent, darkened and stripped down, leaving an eerie echo long after it finishes.

Immediately following is Moments of Pleasure, also in a completely new version. If anything, the transformation here is even more startling. The original Red Shoes version always sounded, to me, like somebody getting their holiday photos back from Happy Snaps and smiling at pleasant recent memories. The new version brings to mind the same person finding those same photos buried in a box in the loft 18 years later and gazing at them in a much more melancholy light. If This Woman’s Work now sounds sonically close to Tori Amos then the new Moments of Pleasure is slap-bang in Tom Waits territory!

There are other highlights here, the changes being more subtle but the overall effect still positive. The Song of Solomon – already one of Red Shoes’ strongest songs– has been given a slightly deeper vocal, is sequenced straight after the opener and extends the early erotic tone of the album well (as does Lily, in which Kate really lets rip!). The Red Shoes (the track) has had a minor but very effective remix – it retains the Gaelic jig elements of the original but these have been pushed down in the mix (think of the guitars on early Joy Division) and this has made the song feel more intense, manic and closer in spirit to the Powell/Pressburger movie.

Deeper Understanding is one cut which, perhaps, could have benefited from a tad more modification. While the opening has a somewhat prescient prophetic air (“As the people here grow colder, I turn to my computer and spend my evenings with it like a friend”) the later sections now seem positively quaint , both lyrically (“I pick up the phone and go ‘execute’”) and musically (the burbling of a PC modem PSTN dial-up)... but it's still a lovely song:

With Never Be Mine, Top of the City & And So is Love it’s definitely a case of “spot the difference” from their original incarnations, but this triumvirate hang together well in the context of the album; Rubberband Girl, however, does attain a new veneer. This is the third completely new recording and, while it’s still quite a throwaway song (intentionally, I'm sure) it now chugs along like a 60s rhythm & blues pub-band (a very good one) with some tasty harmonica that Dr. Feelgood would have been proud of.

This is an interesting experiment and, if rumours are anything to go by, works as a warm-up for forthcoming new material along with (deep breath) possibly the chance to see Kate live for the first time since 1979!

Director’s Cut is available in just about every format just about everywhere just about now. If you have cash to splash I’d recommend the 3xCD pack, which contains a (really well) remixed Red Shoes and the original (sublime) Sensual World.