Healthy Living Books Music

Rating: - A shadow of greater bands
The Last Shadow Puppets enlisted the help of Scott Walker for this Love/Misunderstood/Coral inspired release. It isn't the most accessible of albums, filled with tracks that follow the same west coast usa 1970 formula. Apart from the obvious singles I feel the rest of the tracks are not diverse enough or contain enough quality to let this album flourish.

An album that lacks any real diversity or uniqueness fails to engage the listener and after the first 5 tracks, I lost interest in this at precisely this point. I struggle to work out what Alex Turner and co are trying to achieve with this attempt. Is it an artistic statement, a homage to their past music preferences or maybe an attempt to break away from the stereotype of their previous work?

Whatever the aim is, I feel it lacks conviction and any real depth of quality. Love, Misunderstood and The Coral all are favourites of mine, and this album should sit nicely with them. In fact if I played this along side them it might just work in places, but it feels even more outdated than the 1960's efforts.

This album fails by being too samey and lacks the quality to pull off the same trick 12 times over. Alex Turner is well known as the cocksure cheeky lad from Sheffield who fronts the Arctic Monkeys, and I believe that is where he excels and he should remain. He deserves some credit for being brave enough to break his mould and to push his and his fans limits, the Mercury nomination is essentially for just that, but this is where this should end.

*** Like: The Coral, The Misunderstood, Love ***

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Rating: - To say this is a good album would be an understatement.
Like others here, I am not so keen on the Arctic Monkeys but this album is much more my scene. It's a much more mature sound but the vocals are your typical Alex Turner.

This sounds like a pared down, unplugged, grown-up Arctic Monkeys record. It's not especially ground-breaking; it doesn't sound especially far removed from others like it but in spite of this, it's an enjoyable album and easy to listen to. My personal favourite track is Standing Next To Me.

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Rating: - Beat that idea to death
If The Teardrop Explodes had covered the theme from 60's kids TV series 'The Flashing Blade' during their early gigs, some of their first album might have ended up sounding like this.

The kitchen sink has been thrown at the production so its a shame that so many of the tracks are much of a muchness. Less could have been so much more in terms of both tempo and arrangement.

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Rating: - SUPERB!
This album is a great surprise. I didn't know what to expect when i bought it. I have the arctic monkeys albums and I like them, however I find them a little too much after a while, each song sounds similar, where as this album is full of great tracks which are written well and the production is, well wow. It has a big sound to it what with the orchestra and that. Each track has the feel that it can be released as a single and thats the mark of a great album. Most definitely the best album I have listened to for a good 10 years!

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Rating: - Overstated
I got this for nothing, fortunately. I can't understand all the comparisons with Scott Walker. Yes, there is an orchestra involved and the arrangements are very full and reminiscent of the sixties but the voice!!! Aargh! It's horrible. And the lyrics are pathetic. Overrated, overstated, overblown. It gets two stars for the very good musicianship and interesting arrangements. But that voice...