IN REVIEW: Arctic Monkeys - "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino"

For many rock bands, following up a breakthrough success can be the source of great stress, and can also yield the most satisfying artistic results. In fact, a good percentage of my favourite albums of all time were made by bands in just that position. Couple these feelings with my longtime adoration of Arctic Monkeys, and the album that followed their breakthrough became one of my highest anticipated albums ever. Granted, they have always been popular overseas, and so already kind of made that post-success statement with Favourite Worst Nightmare in 2007; still, homeland success paled in comparison to the international star-making turn that was 2013's AM.

Now, to be clear, Arctic Monkeys have always been fond of changing things up from one record to the next, never content to let their sound truly stagnate; after following up their fast and loose debut with the darker and meaner Favourite Worst Nightmare, they ended up going on a spirit walk in the desert with Josh Homme and recording a batch of psyched out haze rockers on Humbug. That was followed by the '60s-indebted pop of Suck It and See, which was then followed by the R&B-infused arena rock that made them well and proper famous on a global scale.

Having conquered the globe, then, what's next? The moon, of course.

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is a difficult, far fetched attempt at keeping fairweather fans honest, a kitschy and bold record that takes Arctic Monkeys' most-loved qualities (guitars and hooks) and treats them like drop tanks, leaving them to burn up in the atmosphere while the band (well, mostly Alex Turner) soldiers on to take up residency as the house band in a lunar lounge. The band's knack for huge riffs and energetic tunes has been stunted in an effort to cater to this nocturnal and interstellar aesthetic, all tinkling ivories, spacey instrumentation and Turner's free-flowing beat poetry. There are lyrical references throughout to such disparate topics as modern society, politics, romance, and even the act of writing songs itself; oh, and the best song on the record is about a well-reviewed taqueria (it's on the roof, if you like to chew with a view).

Musically, the album is often devoid of anything resembling a memorable song, at least when using the rest of the band's discography as a reference point (which, for best results, you absolutely should not do while listening to this record); fair enough, since the intended approach is to take it in as a full length album listening experience. Still, only a few tunes came close to jumping out after a half dozen listens. The ones that do stick are what I imagine was hoped for the album as a whole; the slinky and offbeat Four Out of Five (the one with the taqueria), the slow burning tone setter Star Treatment, and the heartfelt closer The Ultracheese are all fantastic songs, as long as you can put yourself in the proper head space. So as to say, go in with a full understanding that Arctic Monkeys are not about to give you more of what you expect.

Where TBHC runs into trouble is that, with its strict adherence to the concept, a lot of its songs tend to blur together in a haze, floating past without leaving much of an impact one way or another. They're as bland as they are bold, certainly much different than everything they've done before but also certainly not better in any substantial way. They fit the motif, to be sure; and, if you like smoky piano ballads with hints of funk and echoes of obscure soundtracks from '60s films, this is your lucky day. As for the average fan, though, this thing proves a chore to sit through even once, let alone the multiple repeat visits required to reveal more of the album's nuance.

Then again, I can't totally fault Arctic Monkeys for the move they chose to make; I'd say they took things just a bit too far in this instance but, as I stated earlier, changing things up is just what they do, and there was just no way they were going to try to build on the lightning-in-a-bottle success of AM with something geared toward the top of the pops. To follow a big mainstream breakout (in recent history an increasingly rare feat for a rock band) with something so brazenly counter-intuitive to what the mainstream wants is tantamount to career suicide in the wrong hands; but, really, is it so much more offensive than if they'd released a derivative, regurgitated version of the smash hits that ran their course years ago? Sure, it's a messy and ultimately flawed experiment, but the fact that Arctic Monkeys not only chose to commit themselves fully to such a massive deviation (hot off the heels of the biggest hits they'll likely ever have, I'll remind you) but almost pulled it off excites me, and perhaps to a greater extent than more of the same ever could have.

May 11, 2018 • Domino
Highlights Star Treatment • Four Out of Five • The Ultracheese