Arctic Monkeys

Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino Domino

- John Robinson

Bet he looks good on the keyboard. A brave reinvention from Alex Turner and co.

SNUG in his robe, he relaxes in his suite. no longer an outsider but a welcome guest, he reflects how all the doors to this and other establishments, formerly closed, now open to welcome him. He endorses the place with his edgy celebrity; it endorses him with exclusivity. But just because he has arrived, doesn’t mean he is completely at ease. now when he looks around, he does so a little more wryly – and writes his thoughts down at the piano.

And of course that is very much Josh Tillman, who makes luxurious and ironic records as Father John Misty, locating his persona in some detailed and decadent modern LA. It’s odd, though, that within a month of the arrival of a succinct and amusing new Tillman single, we should now be listening to the new Arctic Monkeys album and finding it to contain many of the same qualities.

Of course it says Arctic Monkeys on the cover, but this is an album more closemic’d around its singer. Alex Turner has ever been the face and creative powerhouse of the Sheffield group, but the band has evolved together: through desertrock experimentation to the masterpiece of 2013’s AM – a work that paid homage to heavy rock, to music of black origin and to the band’s adopted home in Los Angeles. As much as the record told of Turner’s heartbreak and cultural dislocation, the album felt very much the fulfilment of a collective process.