that bloody mary's lacking in tabasco

So, the Arctic Monkeys are back. Back! BACK! Actually, I am not sure they ever went away, to tell you the truth. Indeed, it's only been about fifteen months since their eagerly awaited debut "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" sold about 6.2 gazillion copies in the first forty-five minutes of a cold January morning.

Perhaps I should start by saying that I thought their debut album was alright. No, perhaps it's slightly better than alright. What it isn't is absolute bloody genius of the highest order and The Future Of Pop Music. It's a jaunty and refreshing record, but if you told me I could never listen to it again, there would be a raising of an eyebrow rather than the clenching of a fist.

That didn't stop me heading out at lunchtime for the specific purpose of buying "Favourite Worst Nightmare", mind, so they must be doing something right. In fact, it's not a bad record, truth be told. Whether it suffers from being so similar a sound to their debut album or benefits from it, that's for you to decide. It does give you the impression that you've heard it all before, although they have a big enough fan base that I don't imagine that matters very much.

Somehow the humour and carefree attitude of "Whatever People Say I Am...." seems to be missing. It has it's moments, but strangely the highlights are when they take a less bombastic and more laid-back (can I say grown-up?) approach on "Only Ones Who Know", "Do Me A Favour" and "505".

I wonder if the freshness of their sound and the perceptiveness of their lyrics when they broke onto the scene rather deflected the attention from whether they were actually any good or not. Clearly they have something but when you look beyond the hype at what remains, whilst perfectly OK, it might not be quite as brilliant as everyone had hoped.