Album review: Arctic Monkeys: Suck it and see

ARCTIC MONKEYS: SUCK IT AND SEEDOMINO, £11.99***

For a while back there, Arctic Monkeys ruled the world. Fastest and biggest-selling debut album in the UK, cited by then prime minister Gordon Brown as his preferred wake-up call, towering follow-up album swiftly and confidently dispatched. But their invincible creative force field was punctured soon enough by Humbug, a difficult third album if ever there was one, generally unloved yet still a laudable effort to push themselves into new territory – literally, as they recorded it in the Mojave desert with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, about as far from their native Sheffield as western guitar rock will allow.

But at least they tried. Possibly stung by the experience (but who knows really? For such down-to-earth lads, they're an inscrutable bunch), the band returned from their desert odyssey, cut their hair – an important gesture, whether by accident or design – and came back to something considerably closer to their roots. Suck It And See, which sounds like a cautious invitation of a title to those who spat out Humbug, will likely please the old school indie fan, featuring as it does guitars which haven't jangled this purely since the first Stone Roses album.

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"Leaked" track Brick By Brick, with drummer Matt Helders on vocals, has already been dismissed as, at best, a bum steer and, at worst, a joke, with its Oasis-standard lyrics and retro garagey pub-rock arrangement, but if you can get beyond its seemingly anti-Monkeys stance, it still makes for pretty good dumb fun.

Despite its ominous guitar shudder, lead single Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair doesn't advance much on its title, simply unfurling a parade of impish dares from Alex Turner such as "wear your shellsuit on Bonfire Night" and other choice counsel. Once you've stopped laughing, there's not much else to enjoy.

Library Pictures sounds closest to Monkeys past, all ferocious momentum, lightning bass runs and heavy surf guitar, giving way to a sultry sashay of a breakdown. Flip knows what Turner's on about, though: "Give me an eeny meeny miny moe" – was that his method for selecting the lyrics?

By his own account, Turner has left the taxi rank and chip shop stuff well behind. He has always possessed more lyrical finesse than his kitchen-sink peers, but the subtleties of his narratives tended to be lost in the frenetic force of those early hits. The best material on this album takes a deep breath and plunges into the wonder of being a lovestruck fool.

Shall he compare his love to a summer's day? Nope, he compares her to the rareness of cans of dandelion and burdock instead, dismissing "those other girls" as "just post-mix lemonade" on the good old-fashioned indie romance of the title track. Seriously, if this chimes with a new relationship at the right moment, it could gain "our song" status for life.

She's Thunderstorms is another indie croon, one with spiralling guitars and muscular, steady drumming, a melody which curls round your legs like a friendly cat and the metaphor "when the heat starts growing horns, she's thunderstorms" among other awed observations.

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But Turner never allows things get too soppy and whimsical. Reckless Serenade's cheeky image of "topless models doing semaphore" being ignored next to the object of his desire is just one gem in his best catalogue of imagery, far overshadowing the pleasant jangling backing to confirm Turner's status as his generation's wittiest love poet.

Piledriver Waltz, already familiar from Turner's wistful EP of songs from the soundtrack of Submarine, gives it a run for its money, while Love Is A Laserquest is like a tear-in-your-beer country song, done Sheffield-style, and The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala – title from Frank Zappa, shimmering guitars from Johnny Marr, psychedelic chorus from The Coral – debunks the patchouli-scented reverie with the broadside, "I took the batteries out of my mysticism and put them in my thinking cap".

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So there is plenty fun and games to be had here, as one would hope. But the parts are more engaging than the whole. Rarely do great lyrics coalesce with a sublime tune, undeniable hook or sweep-you-off-your-feet power. All My Own Stunts and That's Where You're Wrong merely cover previously trodden territory to oblique, diminishing returns. And is it just me or has Turner half-inched part of the tune of Black Treacle from The Lambeth Walk?

As with The Strokes, it is probably best not to judge every subsequent musical utterance from Arctic Monkeys against their audacious debut. Some rare bands arrive fully formed, deliver an era-defining classic and then settle into life as an above-par rock band, and so it goes here.

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