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Standard Fare - The Noyelle Beat (LP)

First Aid Kit - The Big Black and The Blue (LP)

Oh Dreamland - Who Cares? (LP)

Bear Driver Myspace

Spaghetti Anywhere - Gregory's Girl

Various - We Are Only Riders: The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project

Various - Cambodian Rocks Vol 2

Avi Buffalo - What’s It In For? (single)

Shearwater - the Golden Archipelago

These New Puritans - Hidden

Fucked Up - Couple Tracks (compilation)

Hexicon - Something Strange Beneath The Stars (single)
 

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Album Review

Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare
Domino

Article written by John S
May 13, 2007.

Arctic Monkeys are back, just over a year since the record breaking, prize-winning debut: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. With a seeming lull in coverage of the Monkeys – pushed aside by nu-rave and another NME favourite of the week – the second album came out with not a lot of fanfare about it. This is a bit of a strange thing really, because this album is a marked improvement on last year’s.

With the blistering opening to the last great hype’s second album, the definite feeling is that you “hope the ending is as pleasurable as the start”. And right through to closer 505, this is what you get. Alex Turner and the band have grown up with tighter playing, lyrics untouched by the celebrity that has followed the band: “the kids all dream of making it, whatever that means”. The wit that was the debut’s backbone still exists in spades, Fluorescent Adolescent telling the story of a woman whose sex life isn’t what it used to be: “used to get it in your fishnets, now you only get it in your night dress”.

The progression between the two albums is a marked one and 505 has the dark tinge of Interpol about it and hints at an even more interesting progression come the third album. Standout track This House Is A Circus reiterates that the Arctic Monkeys show no signs of changing their refreshing anti-celebrity lifestyle manners, “there’s certainly some venom in the looks you collect…struggling with the notion that it’s life not film”. If living in the limelight doesn’t affect the Monkeys, then third time around, we’re all in for a reet treat!

This isn’t as an immediate album as some might have been expecting, but the pleasure is all the more heightened by the fact that a little work is required to fully enjoy the nuances and delights it offers. This isn’t aided by the fact that the 12 tracks rattle past in 38 minutes. The final realisation that there isn’t a bad track on this album will ensure that the Monkeys will be topping many end of year bests again.

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