No worries, Arctic Monkeys have not released any ‘rubbish’. But Humbug does have an unexpected relaxing, deep and resonating sound with an overall pretty mature and self-confident feel to it. Gone is the overstressed, rushing, high-speed sequence of crowded, multi-melodic songs.
Most of the typical style elements have remained though but in a calmer form. Luckily there still is Alex Turner’s amazing ability to stress syllables that you didn’t even know were there. And his way to cut up sentences but still make them fit some sort of rhyming purpose.
Monkeys may be animals, I don’t feel that the Arctics are D A N . G E R . O U S here. But maybe I’m just lost in an Age of the Understatement.
