The Last Shadow Puppets
The Age Of The Understatement

There is a musical genre that I really love. Baroque Pop. Well, you're still here: you want to read something. I won't dwell too much on explanations that you'll contest in a pseudo-scientific manner; Baroque Pop is something that recalls the '60s, the pre-MTV era; the more "cultured" classical instrumentation, the more "plebeian" modern melodies. It's a type of music to sing sometimes with vigor, sometimes with a whisper. And I like it, amen. I don't expect everyone to fully understand.

I don't like the Arctic Monkeys, and I wouldn't have imagined that such a tasty piece could have emerged from one of them.

The Age of Modesty (a very free translation) should, in my opinion, be taken quite literally. Without lacking strong hues, it's an escape from rock that is edgy and rebellious, so proudly flaunted these days. It is the descendant (with a parent found in certain semi-unknown productions of the '90s) of an already faded period, the period of the warm brownish hues: The Golden '60s.

It's a project that appeals to young people like me because it's totally alternative (Damn, it's alternative stuff, it's cool! It's cool!), but (personal experience) also to dads who have fond memories of the Beatles and Beach Boys.
I then claim the right to believe in the best intentions of the British duo in producing this record: again, we have excellent material.
We have a rhythm that evokes the wild battles between cowboys and Indians, with those riffs even dear to spy music (the '60s, no less).
The compositions don't differ much from each other, yet each has a story of its own to tell. And it does so very directly, almost one-on-one. More of a singer-songwriter style than that of a rock band.

To be honest, I also notice a respectable instrumental ensemble: strings, brass, organ, and various effects not even that distant from the era of great British pop.

Dreamy, intense, virile, and at times dark, "The Age of Understatement" is a record where our puppets seem to become aware of their personal and artistic maturation; and I add: it's an album that hits like a rapier in a contemporary English scene today perhaps very overrated, in some respects.

Is it the start of something? We'll have to see the sales of the next record, in my opinion. Do we want to be provocative?

"The Age of Understatement" is a reactionary album. And I don't even think it's that unpopular.