Believe the hype
Arctic Monkeys
Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys
I have to admit it • I was wholly looking forward to unceremoniously tearing the Arctic Monkeys a new arsehole.
After the stunning commercial success of Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not and the total media saturation that followed, I suspect that even the fans • be they the diehard, genuine ones, or the pinkpoloshirted rahs chanting along earnestly to Mardy Bum as the Filth DJ bigs up the Pembroke rowing team • would probably forgive a man for being more than a little sick of them by now. And holy mackerel, Batman, am I sick of the Arctic Monkeys.
I’m sick of their songs, I’m sick of the hype and I’m sick of the mediocre level to which the standard of ClashBuzzcocksJam ripoff required to defi ne a Number One Hit has descended. But frustratingly, as I trawled through this 5-track EP again and again desperately trying to hate it, my bitter ears came away with no fodder for brutal criticism.
True, opener The View From The Afternoon, as taken from the album, is probably the weakest song on the EP • it fumbles as its sloppy guitar work is laid bare by dry production and substandard songwriting. And Cigarette Smoker Fiona is only a little better, with the slightly slicker production of a sophomore recording. But the rest of it, while not a leaping departure from their album, is markedly more accomplished and better thought out.
The folky charm of Despair In The Departure Lounge makes you wonder why they never opted for the soft, lofi approach in the fi rst place • here, Alex Turner’s more restrained vocals allow a melody to shine through far stronger than anything on Whatever.
But the real pop gem follows in No Buses, where Turner’s newfound sense of melody sits atop a disarmingly pretty pair of panned guitars • one clean, one overdriven • which jangle away happily in either ear, waiting for the drums to kick in towards the end. And then, fi nally, comes the title track, touted as the band’s insistence that they don’t believe their own hype. But irony appears to be working in their favour.
Even if you consider only the fi rst three minutes, you’d be looking at a pleasant enough Clash B-side, but you’d be missing out on the delicious twist: Arctic Monkeys going nasty! As the three-minute mark rolls past, the sky clouds over and Turner, halfdrones, half-snarls “it’s not you, it’s them that are wrong / tell ‘em to take out their tongues”.
Dark stuff from a chart-topping pop band, just as guitars crash in with a shout of “bring on the backlash!” and the feeling that this time, the undeniable frantic energy of their performance is coming not from their haphazard lack of musicianship, but actually from their hearts. AM are simply not original enough to live up to the monumental hype surrounding them. Even this EP, though more accomplished than their debut is still a fairly average record from a fairly average NME band.
But it does suggest that given some time, they could make some great music • sadly, by that point, there’s every chance the hype will have died and sucked the Arctic Monkeys back under the waves as quickly as they emerged.
20th Apr 2006