Turner romances his Steinway, tapping influences like French crooner Serge Gainsbourg’s oily Sixties ballads louche, late-Seventies Leonard Cohen and the space-age bachelor pad music hipsters were down with in the Nineties. Their five-years-in-the-making Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is a lounge-pop concept record set in a casino piano bar on the moon. The Monkeys have come a long way since the wordy, stungun punk rock of their 2005 hit “I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor.” A really long way.

Highlights include “Golden Trunks,” “The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip” and “Star Treatment.” Black vinyl pressing housed in gatefold sleeve with 16-page booklet and download code, released by Domino.The Arctic Monkeys‘ Alex Turner is the Damon Albarn of his Brit-pop generation – the restless artist who refuses to sit still in one sound too long. There’s no frenetic indie festival anthems no “When The Sun Goes Down” or “Flourescent Adolescent,” but instead we get something along the lines of Ziggy Stardust (come to think of it, a few of these tracks actually sound quite a lot like Bowie), something fans will likely pour over and dissect for years to come. Alex Turner’s vocal delivery has slowed down a bit, and coupled with the band’s laidback grooves and loungey, piano-centric arrangements, tracks like “American Sports,” “One Point Perspective” and “Batphone” hint at some of Pulp’s finer moments (or maybe we can finally hear how similar Turner’s sleazy Sheffield accent is to Jarvis’). Truthfully, the band feel that TBH+C is best experienced in its entirety (as it’s a bit of a sonic departure from AM) and we couldn’t agree more: the concept of the Arctic Monkeys as in-house jazz band for a hotel on the moon isn’t easy to digest in 3 minutes. The album was rolled out with minimal promotion and no lead single to speak of (our distributor even specifically asked us not to post any pictures of the vinyl prematurely for fear of some of the lyrics getting out).

Hotly-anticipated concept album from Sheffield indie rockers the Arctic Monkeys! Fans have never had to wait more than 24 months for a new Arctic Monkeys record, but following the smash success of 2013’s AM, they’ve had to wait more than double that amount of time, and Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino was worth it and then some.

Tranquility base hotel and casino