Album Title
Arctic Monkeys
Artist Icon Humbug (2009)
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First Released

Calendar Icon 2009

Genre

Genre Icon Indie

Mood

Mood Icon Philosophical

Style

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Release Format Icon Album

Record Label Release

Speed Icon Domino

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Album Description
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Humbug is the third studio album by English indie rock band Arctic Monkeys, first released on 19 August 2009 by Domino Records. The band started to write songs for the album towards the end of summer 2008, and finished it entirely on spring 2009.
Like their last release, Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug was released first in Japan, on 19 August 2009, followed by Australia, Brazil, Ireland and Germany, on 21 August 2009. It was then released in the UK on 24 August 2009, in the US the following day and in Greece on 31 August. The release preceded the band's headline performances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals at the end of that week.

The band started writing songs for the album towards the end of summer 2008, with lead singer Alex Turner suggesting that the inspiration for the first few guitar riffs came while the band were attending the Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Tracks were written through the end of 2008, with recording taking place around the band's touring schedule towards late 2008 and early 2009.
Co-produced by Josh Homme, the album was wholly recorded in the United States. Homme-produced tracks recorded in Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert alongside New York recordings produced - as per the second album - by James Ford, who also produced the album The Age of the Understatement by Turner's side-project The Last Shadow Puppets.

Early soundbites of tracks from the album appeared in the band's periodical video diary on YouTube. While being interviewed for the BBC Culture Show, Alex Turner and Matt Helders cited Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Jake Thackray, John Cale, Nick Cave, Roky Erickson, and The Beatles were all major influences on the recording of the album.
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User Album Review
Put aside all thoughts of imminent backlash immediately, as Humbug is Arctic Monkeys’ most enjoyably complete album to date.
Recorded in part with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme in the Californian desert, while it lacks the hook-laden immediacy of previous collections, Humbug embraces the true nature of album-craft by sequencing ten tracks in such a way that coherence and consistency bind constituent pieces into a single, enjoyably sombre whole.
Melancholic overtones permeate even the brightest Alex Turner lyricism. His voice is heavier than before, confident that songs about popping down the local corner shop and asking a girl out aren’t guaranteed to maintain the group’s success. A wise move, especially as said approach has been reduced to cliché by pale imitators.
Homme’s presence is felt in the solid, rugged mix, yet stoner vibes are conspicuous by their absence, nary a waft of weed smoke manifesting itself aurally. As for the reported Hendrix and Cream influences: while the band is indulging in a depth of sound previously unplumbed, songs remain loaded with a mischievous, at times malevolent energy.
Penultimate track Pretty Visitors is particularly unsettling: “What came first, the chicken or the d*******?” spits Turner, as Circus of Horrors organs are split asunder by some truly tumultuous drumming from Matt Helders. It’s one of many indicators on Humbug that Arctic Monkeys are actively moving away from the sound that launched a hundred would-be acts in their wake. Kitchen-sink poetry’s replaced by rampant analogies, characters of the everyday transformed into otherworldly denizens with wicked intentions.
Turner still spills syllables rather too swiftly at times – Secret Door would benefit from a little lexical restraint – but largely a slow-and-steady approach prevails, mirrored by the music’s assured shuffle. Fire and the Thud is a good example of the band’s sprightly past tempered by their present penchant for laid-back, blues-touched riffs. Lead single Crying Lightning also showcases a newfound swagger – less raw-knuckled front, more funk-kissed fuzz-bass serving as the backbone for some delightful fret wandering.
If there’s one fact to be presented through all this subjectivity, it’s that Arctic Monkeys have grown up: here, they incorporate elements of rock‘n’roll past to fuel a very modern affair, and that it manages to sound completely unique is testament indeed to Turner and company’s cultivated creative nous.


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