Arctic Monkeys
AM

Under the hot sun of the Mojave Desert, four young men walk in their black, dusty cowboy boots. Proud and satisfied, they are reaching their mentor, the man who took them under his protective wing and turned them into real men, real rockstars.

We still remember them when, a few years ago, they were in rainy England playing in a home garage on school afternoons. They sang about girls their age in discos, they were insecure and still inexperienced with their guitars. Now they have grown up, they are men, they are the band of the moment. They are still the Arctic Monkeys, but this time they soar high above the clear California sky.

Just listen to "Do I Wanna Know" to understand how much they have changed. Sharp guitars, dry drums, and a sound reminiscent of the early tunes of their mentor, Josh Homme. There's a veil of psychedelia hovering over each of the twelve tracks on the new album, AM. The same psychedelia that forty years ago hovered over the songs of Black Sabbath, and in the nineties over the songs of Kyuss. There's the same sharp melody, the same approach. "R U Mine?" is perhaps the clearest example of how the old but never forgotten "Paranoid," dated 1970, has set the standard and still serves as a source of inspiration for those who want to become rockstars. And if you want to enter the rockstar heaven, the best thing to do is to never lose your unmistakable style, the imprint you have left.

The Arctic Monkeys have understood the trick well, because halfway through the album they place two tracks that slow down the sound, which for a few minutes take them back to those gray afternoons in Sheffield where it all began. "N. 1 Party Anthem" and the subsequent "Mad Sounds" turn off the granite explosions of hard rock to catapult into the mythical sixties, to the Beatles, and quickly return to the bittersweet carefree days of adolescence. Alex Turner is the rockstar, he is the small and shy boy who became a man, the insecure eighteen-year-old who now, at twenty-seven, knows he has the qualities necessary to climb the mountain and reach those who, in the past, made their music a source of inspiration. The Arctic Monkeys don't invent anything new, let's be clear, they will never be revolutionaries. They will only (and that's no small feat) be those who managed in a few years to find their own path, to feel comfortable and satisfied with their musical style. AM is a highly successful album, the most successful among the five albums recorded so far. The most focused, like their photograph on an old pickup in the background of the Mojave Desert, which graces the front page of some of the world's best-selling music magazines. In "Knee Socks" Josh Homme also appears, the man who believed in these four English guys and made them reach the heights where they are now.

I don't know if behind this climb to success of the Arctic Monkeys there is more cunning than humility, stages burned too quickly rather than hard work and effort. The evident fact is that anyway AM is an album that is pleasant to listen to, twelve tracks that never bore, that do not reek of déjà vu even if they are inspired by the great figures of the past. And that's enough for me to say that yes, the Arctic Monkeys have made it once again.