triple j just played the new Arctic Monkeys album, “Humbug”. It was leaked a while ago, but this was the official premiere of it apparently. I’ll be picking up the album very soon hopefully, so a full proper review will be up in the near future, but for now, here’s what I initially thought after listening to the preview.
Josh Homme’s influence is clearly showing through, I think. It’s not as instantly catchy as their previous albums, but I think this album will grow on people. It’ll be one of those ones, that if you put time into listening to it a bit, it will develop and sound better and better. The sound is a bit darker, and the hooks are bit more distorted and out there.
Especially since this sounds quite different to previous material, I think there will be a lot of whingers about changing styles. Definitely not about selling out though, just changing styles.
However, I think this album is definitely gonna be worth it. It’s always good to see a band taking themselves in a different direction.
Overall, I like it. I think it has a lot of promise. And I don’t think it will disappoint.
On The Tune 
I missed it! Damn.
I’ve heard mixed things about this album. I spose I could download the leak but I reckon it’s better to wait for a better quality version.
The people who complain about a band changing direction are usually the same people that complain when a band doesn’t change their sound.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Whether it’s the same people or not, if they stay the same or change there’s always gonna be someone complaining.
But I think their first two albums were good enough in that style, so I’m happy they’re mixing it up a bit.
People keep talking about the new direction, but I don’t think it differs a huge amount from Favorite Worst Nightmare. It was still quite pop sounding, but people always said that one was dark too.
I think this is just the sound Arctic Monkeys would like to be known as from here on out.
I guess I’ll have to give it a bit more of a listen, I’ve only heard it all once. Personally, I didn’t think Favourite Worst Nightmare was that dark really.
I think Humbug is sounding a lot less poppy than previous stuff, maybe it’s just me though. Describing it as “darker” has probably been overdone to death I suppose, but I think it’s a lot less poppy and some of the guitar hooks sounded more progressive.
I’d like to think, that though this is a good step forward, that they’ll continue to mess around with their style a bit and change anyway. Bands that stick with one sound can get boring quickly over a few albums.