Arctic Monkeys are streaming their new album Suck It And See on their website at www.arcticmonkeys.com. Although the album isn’t released until next Monday June 6th, the band are letting fans hear it first a week early. The follow-up to 2009’s Humbug, was recorded by producer James Ford in Los Angeles, who also oversaw the band’s second album Favourite Worst Nightmare . Suck It And See contains the previously released songs ‘Brick By Brick’, ‘Reckless Seranade’ and the album’s first single ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’, as well as ‘All My Own Stunts’, which features Queens of the Stone Age front man Josh Homme on backing vocals.
The band are confident in their new album, with front man Alex Turner saying “I get nervous about gigs sometimes, but not with records – I always get excited. With every record we’ve done, the moment we’ve finished it, we’ve been really proud. We just want people to hear it – to share it.” He’s also wary of the band getting any bigger than they are, saying they don’t want to reach Coldplay or U2 proportions – rather they’d like to refine their song writing. He says “It’s not really like that for us. We want to get better rather than get bigger.”
While all signs point to the album being a return to form after the mixed reaction to Humbug, he’s also conscious of his role as the band’s main songwriter, and has finally decided to print the album’s lyrics on copies of the release for the first time, after initially being uncomfortable about opening himself up to such scrutiny. He says “I just misunderstood what it was, I think. But then I started to recognise that it was a craft, you know, something you could get better at. Then it dawned on me – I do write songs. That’s me.”
