Thursday, April 12, 2007

Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm

Once upon a time I thought the Arctic Monkeys were alright. I had an .mp3 of a decent enough song called A Certain Romance but I couldn't get past the fact that the riff was a complete Ocean Colour Scene ripoff. I was then reviled by the fact that, when they finally deigned to churn out an album, it consisted almost entirely of songs they'd already released for free to their fans on interweb, and filled in the gaps with some other songs that sounded exactly the same as the rest. It was the most 5/10 album of the year. It wasn't terrible, but likewise, it had nothing special about it, and yet it got lapped up by the record buying zombies nationwide. Travis. Coldplay. Snow Patrol. Arctic Monkeys.

This single sees them make their ill advised return. You'd have thought that having seen the backlash reserved for Maximo Park and Arcade Fire that they'd have split on the spot. I certainly would have, rather than release this record. The problem is that it's View From The Afternoon V2.0. Only it's not, because it's crapper. You should never release a shit rework of your own song as a single. Absurdly, Brianstorm is the second track on this single. Lead track "If You Found This It's Probably Too Late" starts off with some strings before burning out in one minute, just like a furious wank.

Then the single itself shows up. You've already heard it on the radio so I won't bother commenting on it. What I will comment on is underage girls in indie nightclubs. Why do they always scream when their favourite song comes on? And why do they scream the loudest for this painfully average candy floss? If you want to hear something really, really awesome on the dancefloor, request the Soulwax remix of Gravity's Rainbow.

The third track is completely disposable, and bizarrely features Dizzee Rascal in a straw-clutch for some more credibility, and the fourth track is probably the best, being feedbacky and noisy and stuff. It's pretty cool once you get 1 minute in, and it's basically GRUNGE at 1 minute 45. The Vines wanted a song like this to put on their second album.

However, I do not await the Arctic Monkeys album with much expectation.

5/10

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