Totally floored by this album.
Adore every single track, "Wanna B Yours" is a perfect album closer.
Quite early, but they just may have surpassed their phenomenal debut.
The album leaked? I'm trying to only listen to it when it comes out but what do you guys think? Is it better than the last one? I didn't really liked 'Suck it And See'.
The album leaked? I'm trying to only listen to it when it comes out but what do you guys think? Is it better than the last one? I didn't really liked 'Suck it And See'.
I'd say so, yes. It's quite soulful compared to their previous records.
I did remember reading that they were influenced by neo-soul artists for this album.
Amazing album
The opening tracks are insanely strong.
The midsection from No. 1 Party Anthem' to 'Fireside' are a little bland but it's ok.
I love the riff on I want it all
Amazing album
The opening tracks are insanely strong.
The midsection from No. 1 Party Anthem' to 'Fireside' are a little bland but it's ok.
I love the riff on I want it all
They put No.1 Party Anthem & Mad Sounds side by side, two ballads which kinda works.
Fireside was one of my initial tracks but following more listens, i love it
They put No.1 Party Anthem & Mad Sounds side by side, two ballads which kinda works.
Fireside was one of my initial tracks but following more listens, i love it
Yeah it's not the fact that they are ballads the songs just seem meh to me.
But this is just 3 or 4 listens into the album I'm sure my opinions will change and they might grown on me
Five albums in, and things are getting kinda sinister for Arctic Monkeys.
Welding inspiration from hip-hop greats with rock’s titans, ‘AM’ is built upon portentous beats that are dark and intimidating, yet wickedly thrilling.
‘Arabella’, for example, suggests Led Zeppelin covering Easy-E’s ‘Boyz-n-The-Hood’. Meanwhile, the Josh Homme-featuring ‘One For The Road’ borrows the “whoo whoos” from the Stones’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ and evokes its fiendish undertones.
The danger level is emphasised by Alex Turner’s typically caustic lyricism, so sharp and intricate in its detail, focus, and imagery.
In opener ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, he sings the beautifully bittersweet line: “There’s this tune that I found / That makes me think of you somehow / And I play it on repeat / Until I fall asleep.” He then counters it with the fabulously mundane: “Spilling drinks on my settee.” And against the stomping glam rock of ‘I Want It All’, his falsetto is distinctly unnerving.
So, there’s heavy-hop, there’s glam, there’s the dense Lennon-like ‘No. 1 Party Anthem’, and there’s shades of the Velvets in ‘Mad Sounds’ and the haunting closer, ‘I Wanna Be Yours’.
All of these stylistic inspirations make ‘AM’ an invigorating experience. It continues the band’s playful diversion from the Mojave-darkness of ‘Humbug’ that ‘Suck It And See’ heralded.
Left incited and excited by the naughty aggression of ‘AM’, an appropriately suggestive message to the album from the listener can be gleamed from ‘No. 1 Party Anthem’: “I just want you to do me no good.”
More than ever, bands talk up new releases like commission-hungry salesmen but Matt Helders’ contention that the Arctics' fifth is “the album we’ve always been waiting to make” holds water. It’s the drummer’s playing – choppy, industrious, a synthetic-sounding snare underpinning a new-found groove – that defines AM as much as the snaking riffs and Alex Turner’s wordplay.
Gloriously over-cooked vocal arrangements – Turner louche and in your face, bolstered by Helders and bassist Nick O’Malley’s high notes – pitch soul aside swagger. 'I wanna be your Ford Cortina,' Turner purrs on I Wanna Be Yours but AM is commendably low on easy signpost references. No 1 Party in Heaven ('Call off the search for your souls') is more typical of the brooding tone.
The gradual move from spit-and-sawdust indie pop to a broader palette – a fuller sound – is a smart one. A compelling argument for never sitting still, it's largely AM's playfulness that marks it as – whisper it – the Arctic Monkeys' best to date. [Gary Kaill]