When the first teaser clip for the Arctic Monkeys’ sixth studio album was released almost everyone became excited at the idea of the band having another LP. After leaving such a long gap from the success of hit record ‘AM’, we all knew another would come soon, but we could never have predicted the sound change between the two albums. Since ‘AM,’ Alex Turner and Miles Kane had reunited The Last Shadow Puppets to produce the orchestral rock group’s second album, ‘Everything You’ve Come to Expect,’ which proved to be one of Turner’s best lyrical works yet. Gone were the 3 am love thoughts of ‘AM’ and in were the deep and almost poetic demonstrations of admiration, ideas shown most in the song ‘Sweet Dreams, TN’ which was supposedly written about Alex’s girlfriend at the time, American model Taylor Bagley, as it was one of the few songs in which he had solo writing credit, showing to be much more personal than many of the other songs, which had Turner and Kane almost playing characters.

During The Shadow Puppets’ album recording and subsequent tour, Alex received a piano as a 30th birthday present, which he began playing and writing melodies and songs on. These melodies are some of the ones present on the finished product. The Arctic Monkeys released their sixth album May 11th of 2018 and called it ‘Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino.’ Immediately, the sound was different, previous opening tracks like ‘The View From the Afternoon’ and ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ started with high paced drumming or slick guitar riffs, but the opening on this record, ‘Star Treatment,’ had a the sound piano to begin with, then followed by Turner showing off his vocals. The album, inspired by science fiction, shown most in song actually called ‘Science Fiction,’ and scores of Jean-Pierre Melville films, was a complete shift in direction for the band, and some people loved it, and some people were let down.

The change in direction was not just in music, Turner had ditched the leather jackets and slicked back hair for longer hair and a beard, along with shirts and smart trouser. Even drummer Matt Helders, who was rarely changed by the band’s previous shifts, had now ditched the tracksuits and t shirts for smart shirts and trousers. The band as a whole was changed, something I think happened as a result of the guys maturing. Much like how The Inbetweeners could never really do a good reunion, as older guys doing and saying what they were doing and saying 10 years ago, would not be very funny and just uncomfortable to watch, Alex Turner at the age of 32 talking of how he is unable to see though somebodies fake tan in a bar in Sheffield would not be very interesting. This change was important, and was probably needed as the calming factor after the intense worldwide success of ‘AM.’

The album also cemented the Monkeys’ as being one of the varied bands of the past few decades, with every album having a different sound. One of the bands who also were known for this, are the Strokes, the band Turner references in the first line on the album, claiming he just wanted ‘to be one of the Strokes.’ The Arctic Monkeys’ often credit the Strokes as being their main inspirations, saying that ‘if it wasn’t for the Strokes then we might never gone into our garage and started.’ The Strokes were a band who suffered from incredible hype and success around their debut album ‘Is This It?’ and it meant that there was always high expectations for their future albums., which meant that they never eclipsed the success of their debut. As time went on, their sound changed and much like the Monkeys never made a bad record. Even on their latest album, ‘Comedown Machine’ released in 2013, an album many people believe just to be an contract obligation, as it was the last of their 5 album contract with their record label, still had some great songs on it. Its easy to see how the Strokes were one of the influential bands of the past few decades, and we see glimmers of them in the Arctic Monkeys, not just the musical direction change, but even in the similarities with front men, watch any interview with Julian Casablancas and then watch an interview with Alex Turner and you will see similarities between the two’s attitude to their music and themselves. Both bands had incredibly popular first albums, with ‘Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not’ to this day being the most sold debut album by a band in the UK.

‘Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino’ was the most important Arctic Monkeys album to date as it showed the bands maturity, after finally achieving international success and recognition on ‘AM,’ the choice not to try and replicate the sound of the record and stick the what made them a household name in the UK, musical direction changes, was the right decision. Now that nearly a year has past since the release, and the hype of a new Monkeys’ album has gone, the music can truly be appreciated for what it is, a beautiful concept album inspired by film scores, science fiction, and fame and the way to deal with it. Lyrically, it is genius, and to call it not the Arctic Monkey’s ‘sound’ is unfair, because what is the Arctic Monkeys sound? Is it four lads in a pub in Sheffield trying to get girlfriends? Is it the same four lads but with their friend Miles Kane on guitar? Is it the four lads but in LA trying to fit in? Is it four lads in an apartment writing love songs? Are they up at 3 am thinking about girls they like? Or is it four guys who have decided to open a hotel and casino on the moon? It is different to everyone, and this album was the most important as it took what everyone believed the sound was, and threw it out of the window, cementing themselves as one of the bands of the past 15 years.

It was different. It was fresh. It was the Arctic Monkeys.