arctic monkeys tranquility base hotel casino review

“American Sports,” in particular, twists dreary, psychedelic guitar tones around a hopeful piano melody. These tunes offer plenty of moments to admire.

Because even though “One Point Perspective,” with its urgently tapped keyboard, and “American Sports,” with its old-fashioned digital circuitry, up the pace, they still feel like songs that should be played in one of Bond’s lavish albeit immoral hangouts. By the time Turner answers his own “who you gonna call” question with “the martini police,” we don’t know if he’s talking about rock n’ roll, fame, or even imagining himself as some sort of over-the-hill lothario-a former James Bond-turned-deadbeat persona, if you will. With a slow, spoken-word beginning, the chorus-less song reads like a chapter from a Hubert Selby book, with stream-of-conscious references to pop-art, depression, and booze. “I just wanted to be one of the Strokes,” he sings to open the album on “Star Treatment,” in which a bachelor-pad piano marinates over a sputtering beat. The personal and global intermix throughout Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, making it never quite clear if Alex Turner is going deep into existentialism or portraying a character.

Arctic monkeys tranquility base hotel casino review