Favourite Worst Nightmare
No, I’m not British. The Arctic Monkeys, however, are. And I bought their newest album yesterday. So it’s time for another review of an album that is already popular. Go.
“Favourite Worst Nightmare” is classified by iTunes as Alternative & Punk. I guess I don’t disagree, but I’m not sure if I entirely agree either. The word indie has to bee included in their somewhere, but I don’t know where it would go in the order of the classification. It’s certainly Alternative, and I was actually tempted to call it somewhat punk myself, but I didn’t. The best I can compare it to is early Interpol, but British. For the most part, it’s far more intense than Interpol (not that they don’t rock hard), but the drummer is, as far as I can tell, the quintessential indie drummer. He’s got the familiar boom-chick beats down cold. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t a stock drummer, but he can be classified pretty nicely. He certainly knows how to match the energy of the rest of the band, so thats good. Indie pretty much came out of punk, so I guess the drummers could probably be swapped around no problem, but whatever.
The singer is really what discouraged me from saying that the album is a punk. He has the slightly distorted, swept mid range tone thing going the whole time. It works for the band, I don’t mind it, but it doesn’t seem punk to me. I haven’t finished listening yet, but he hasn’t yelled or screamed yet. His voice reminds me of Interpol again, except British and processed differently. It’s kinda like a more badass version of the dude from Jet. His lyrics are quick; there are multiple syllables and words in each line, which sometimes makes it hard figure out what he is saying. I’ll have to save my judgement on the lyrics for later, as they are not printed in the liner notes.
Now, I don’t listen to a lot of punk. It gets boring to me. I understand the appeal- I really do, but it just doesn’t grab me. Too often it’s pretty sloppy and isn’t enough variation in the songs. I can’t stand much of three chord progressions. The Arctic Monkeys turn out songs, on the other hand, that don’t really fit the punk mold. The songs may start to sound familiar here and there, but that’s because the Arctic Monkeys, to me, have a distinctive sound. The guitar tracks match the singer’s (same guy, I think) fast approach, and the distorted energy coming out of it all is far more focused and deliberate that I think most punk accomplishes. It’s also not the grunge rock of the nineties, it’s a little to refined for that. The band is super tight is doesn’t seem to be playing for simple noise, but rather for high energy riffs and breaks that create a noise wall that is unique.
In short, I’d recommend picking it up if you’re into any of those genres. I suppose it’s really a combination of all three, but I’d say the Alt and Indie scenes shine through a little more than the punk side. Either way, for a better glimpse as to what they sound like, go to youtube and search the song Brainstorm. Link here. http://youtube.com/watch?v=30w8DyEJ__0
The video is kind of iffy, but I don’t like music videos anyway.
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