Arctic Monkeys new album: appreciating Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino

It's been five years since Arctic Monkeys released their last album AM which was their most commercially successful to date. They have made us wait for this one but it's obvious why, this album must have taken a serious amount of hours to make because it truly is like a piece of art.

I woke at 3am this morning, by chance and was about to slip back into my dreams when I remembered the album came out today, I immediately listened to the whole thing through. Then I listened to it again on the dart on the way into work and now I am listening to it again as I write this. "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" is a sci-fi adventure through a haunting lounge set up of low lying fog and leafless trees in a Leith Stevens 1953 "War Of The Worlds" type setting- bare with me here. It's hard to know when one song ends and the other begins, but I like that; it is an album, not a collection of singles, there is a reoccurring sound and theme to all of the tracks. As Pitchfork perfectly put; the album is changing from their usual spiky guitar riffs they are best known for, they fill their retro futuristic lounge with ornate, orchestrated, vintage-keyboard-heavy pop inspired by classics like the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson.

My first ever concert was in The Point to see Van Morrison, my father took myself and my brother. I was very young, maybe 10 or 11 and I remember falling asleep only to be woken by my father rattling my shoulders saying something along the lines of "for godlike wake up your going to appreciate this one day!"
After that I saw Britney Spears on her Toxic tour and Christina Aguilera supported by The Black Eyed Peas on her Dirrty tour, both were Christmas presents from my parents. But the first time I ever bought a concert ticket on my own accord was for the Arctic Monkeys in Malahide Castle. I have since see them four times and they will forever be the reminder of my love affair with music, so I will try and write this without being bias, and I really don't think I am being. You cannot deny what this latest album is.

Reading through Twitter, the reviews are extremely mixed but it's very much one way or the other, there is little confusion. People either hate it or love it but there are a few saying they need more time. But let me just say this, for the people that are saying they are no longer Artic Monkeys and some kind of hypnotic electric bullshit sound, what were you expecting? Do you really want them to bring out another album about smoking weed in Sheffield and getting into fights in bars? Growing up in a shit area? They are in their 30's and they're global superstars who have progressed massively, their sound has grown with them, becoming more intricate and complex. I mean, the use of instruments in this new album is simply marvellous, you wouldn't get that with a band's first, second or even third album. This is the sound of a band who's been in the industry for decades, this sound is groundbreaking.

They are known for their spit guitar rifts and British rock sound but this album brings you a retro futuristic lounge with ornate, orchestrated, vintage-keyboard-heavy pop inspired by classics like the Beach Boy's "Pet Sounds" and Serge Gainsbourg's "Histoire de Melody Nelson." It's a haunting and unsettling sound that will linger in your mind hours after you have stopped listening to the album. There is a spacey effect, there is jazz, there is piano, it is creepy and it is dark. My best advice is to lie on your bed and listen to the album through. Appreciate the unique sound, appreciate the use of instruments and appreciate that they have changed and will continue to change and transition because they aren't a normal band, they don't follow rock sound as it is known to be, they are constantly reinventing rock. They have never treaded water and they never will, Alex Turner is a fantastic song writer and together they are all spectacular musicians.

Arctic Monkeys don't owe us anything, they had nothing to prove but this album just reconfirms why they are truly great and why they will go down in history as one of the best rock bands to ever be born, we are lucky to have them.