The Last Shadow Puppets
The Age Of The Understatement

THE REVIEW

To Alex Turner, the Arctic Monkeys are starting to feel, evidently, too limiting.

So what to do? At least for now, radically changing the sound of the parent band would be (perhaps) a suicidal move. So why not start a "parallel" band (considering the great success of similar projects, see Jack White and Brendan Benson's The Raconteurs)?

 That's how Turner recruits his good friend Miles Kane, singer of the emerging indie rockers The Rascals (who are about to release their debut "Rascalize" on the upcoming ninth of June) and James Ford, producer of the acclaimed Monkeys debut as well as "Myths Of The Near Future" by the Klaxons and working on the new Scissor Sisters album, here as drummer and producer. The new "superband" is named "The Last Shadow Puppets" and the new album "The Age Of The Understatement" was recorded starting from August 2007 between France and native England.

 The Morricone-like suggestions of the title track/single, or of pieces like "Only The Truth", immediately highlight their more "authorial" and less nervous and raw attitude compared to the guitar-based drunkenness of the first two "monkeys" works (especially the debut). Turner and Kane sing accompanied by an arrangement that couldn’t be more western, vaguely winking at the latest Muse's "Knights Of Cydonia", yet always maintaining their typical utterly British attitude; the elements described create a strange yet enjoyable sound mixture, pleasant overall in its undeniable originality. Highly appreciable are some more canonically "guitar pop" episodes like the upcoming single "Standing Next To Me", where the strings play a fundamental role (added during the album’s London recording session). The tracks flow briefly and compactly, and "five-star" references to songwriting masters like Bacharach inevitably come to mind (with all due and obvious proportions), especially when the trio emphasizes the pathos of the piece rather than its melodic immediacy (not to be missed in this sense "The Chamber", among the best things Turner has ever written). The Puppets' pop manages to be unusual and at the same time titillating, while always keeping in mind that these are still 22-year-olds dealing with countless influences, often tending to overdo it.

 As the album tracks progress, the excellent Coral inevitably come to mind, especially when the tracks take a distinctly sixties turn, such as in "Black Plant" or "In My Room", the best in this sense; even a hilarious mix between Turner's parent band and James Skelly's emerges in "I Don't Like You Anymore".

So, a lot on the stove, and a Turner who demonstrates his desire not to be considered just a writer of quirky indie-brit rock bullets. Kane and Ford, then, fortunately prove to be two good and loyal travel companions.

 Good performance; it remains to be seen what consequences this experience will have on new works by the Rascals and, above all, by the "arctic monkeys".

 Key tracks: "Standing Next To Me", "The Chamber", "Black Plant", "I Don't Like You Anymore"