Year in Rock 2012 Nominee: Arctic Monkeys

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ARCTIC MONKEYS
R U Mine?
From: R U Mine? (single)
Released: February 27

In a year seemingly dominated by grand, multi-album statement records, leave it to Arctic Monkeys; they could have bled last year's very good yet commercially underperforming Suck It And See for another single, maybe even two. Instead, they went back to the studio and cranked out a new 7” for Record Store Day. What makes R U Mine? so remarkable isn't that it's a non-album track; it's that, even as a standalone single, it trumps just about every other song in the Arctic Monkeys' already impressive catalogue. If its muscular groove is any kind of clue to what we can expect on their fifth album (by rights, due sometime in 2013), I'll have a hard time containing my excitement.

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