Arctic Monkeys

Aided by Josh Homme’s (Queens of the Stone Age) staccato-bursts-and-eerie-tremolo-twangs approach to production and the notably primal drum work of Matt Helders, Humbug leaves Turner and Co’s football choruses to languish in the Mojave surrounding Joshua Tree, California, where most of it was recorded. This is much harder stuff and musically, much darker. Besides employing Homme and doing takes in spooky desert structures, Turner also claimed to have heard Black Sabbath, Hendrix and Cream during the recording process. The more obvious aspects of this side of the mix get to give a right earful in the twisted guitar lines of ‘Crying Lightning’ and the very heavy prog opus complete with mournful organ that is ‘Pretty Visitors.’ Of course there’s also the typical Monkeys whimsy in songs like ‘Secret Door’ (”˜It’s a magnolia celebration/To be attempted on a Wednesday night/It’s better than to get a reputation/As a miserable little tyke’) and the turn of balladeer Turner of The Last Shadow Puppets on ‘Cornerstone’. But finally it’s the frontman’s uncharacteristically cool, smoky vocal performances in a bunch of carefully restrained songs that really captures the essence of this record. Of note are opener ‘My Propeller,’ ‘Fire and the Thud’ (also featuring a Jack White-like guitar explosion), the head-bobbing ‘Dance Little Liar,’ the dense dreamworld of ‘The Jeweller’s Hands’ (which could well have come off of the soundtrack to Lost Highway) and the Morrisonesque coda to the otherwise unremarkable ‘Potion Approaching.’ Humbug is perhaps the most ambitious thing the band have done since devising their hip and hyper sound and carries with it a welcome dose of extra menace. A true grower.