Album Review: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys

There has been widespread shock – considerable disbelief, too – at Arctic Monkey’s sudden shift, on their sixth LP, into velvet-slipper lounge rock. This is a puzzling response, given that Alex Turner has displayed such tendencies previously, across two records by his Last Shadow Puppets side project.
True, even by the Hugh Hefner-in-space standards of those LPs, Arctic Monkeys’ latest is gleefully outré – a devil-take-the-consequence valentine to Jimmy Webb and Harry Nilsson and vintage pads with shagpile in the loo and lava lamps as standard. It is, needless to say, a plucky departure – universes removed from both the brash stomp of the Monkeys early work and their later-day pivot into assured stadium pop.

Jaundiced by a decade plus of staring at his guitar, Turner has stated this was the first time he composed a body of songs on piano. The new working method has certainly shifted his perspective, though it is hard to say how readily fans will flock to the bizarre burblings of ‘She Looks Like Fun’ or lyrics such as “The leader of the free world reminds you of a wrestler wearing tight golden trunks” (on ‘Golden Trunks’).

Turner would no doubt counter with the argument that every artist with a long term career has had their eccentric moments. When you’re in it for the long haul, what’s wrong with indulging yourself every so often?

In keeping with the retro sensibility, orchestral flourishes are slapped on with abandon. They’re all over ‘The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip’, a woozy fandango that suggests Young Americans-era Bowie playing over the closing credits to an Austin Powers movie.

Here and elsewhere, Turner is stingy with the hooks and choruses. He meanders with a vengeance on ‘Science Fiction’ and presides over a tottering glam hells-cape on the aforementioned ‘She Looks Like Fun’.

As with all the most interesting records, Tranquility Base takes you on a journey – one that gets weirder and woozier as you go along. ‘Batphone’ is a carnival ride of banging piano and fire-snorting riffs, with Turner half-crooning, half-rasping ; and ‘Ultracheese’ embarks on a bluesy ramble whilst declining to live up to the title’s implicit promise of top level fruitiness.

What all this portends for the Arctic Monkeys is hard to say, though presumably the next album will be more straightforward (it could hardly be less so). Not that Turner is overly troubled you suspect. The band’s upcoming arena tour was a straight sellout and Tranquility Base is on course to be one of the year’s fastest-shifting rock albums. Quite an achievement for an LP which explicitly rejects many of the genre’s founding principles.