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 6th (USA June 7th) on Domino Records.
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