Music Review: The Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

The UK music press takes band hype to interstellar levels (every band is the biggest thing since Jesus), but last year's hot pick, the Arctic Monkeys, actually lived up to the accolades with a stinging, hook-filled first album. The pop-punk Whatever People Say I Am, That's Why I Am Not was more of a cult hit in the US, but it broke records in Britain, becoming the fastest-selling debut in British history. And heck, it deserved it a lot more than, say, Oasis. The Monkeys crafted a potent stew of punk rhythms and ennui-filled lyrics, capturing the feeling of the MySpace generation.

Now a year or so later, here's the follow-up, Favourite Worst Nightmare – get out your carving knives for the sophomore slump, right? Well, record #2 doesn't kick you in the bollocks the way the first record did, red-hot with its own fresh immediacy. But the Monkeys (barely a member over age 21) still smash together influences like the Clash, Green Day, The Streets and Blur into a bitter stew that is cynical but never hateful, often surprisingly insightful and consistently rocking.

Frontman Alex Turner's wiser-than-his years vocals snap and crackle with a cynical bite. His light-speed lyrical delivery, influenced by hip-hop, is faster than ever, almost like a cockney auctioneer at some points. But there's also a new found wry romanticism to Turner's voice this time round, although let's not start calling him Michael Bolton – unless lines like "do me a favour and break my nose" make your heartstrings tickle. In another tune, he sighs, "true romance can't be achieved these days." The music rockets along with an adrenalized momentum helped by the knife-sharp dueling guitar lines by Turner and Jamie Cook and skittering drums by Matt Helders. It slows down for a few ballady-type numbers, but generally the mood is even more amped up than the first record.

What is missing is some of the lyrical specificity that in Whatever made you feel like you'd lived through nights with the band. The telling details of life in the band's native Sheffield are gone for a more global view. Yet the best numbers on Favourite crackle with empathy and contempt all at once, like the lover's kiss off "Flourescent Adolescent" or the bouncy fame's-not-all-you-thought tune "Teddy Picker" (with witty one-liners like "the kids all dream of making it /whatever that means"). With their second album, the Arctic Monkeys prove that they're managing to overcome the hype to build up an actual career.

Article Author: Nik Dirga

An American journalist who now lives in New Zealand, Nik Dirga writes whenever the mood strikes him about books, music, movies, pop culture and more.

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