The Last Shadow Puppets: Everything You've Come to Expect (Domino) Review

The Last Shadow Puppets

Everything You’ve Come to Expect

Domino

Apr 07, 2016 The Last Shadow Puppets By Hays Davis

It’s been eight years since Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner and Miles Kane (known also for his solo work and with the trio The Rascals) released The Age of Understatement and revealed their collaboration to be more than a working holiday. And if Everything You’ve Come to Expect doesn’t cut significantly into Turner’s time with the Monkeys, it makes a strong case for a shorter wait between records than the eight years since Understatement.

The opening “Aviation” wastes no time in making that case. Rather than employing Understatement‘s more obvious cues from ‘60s pop, here the Puppets seem to have absorbed those elements while moving toward a more defined sound. Strings, arranged by Owen Pallett, provide dramatic shading to “Aviation” over James Ford’s uptempo beat in a tune about the evening’s potential partner. Points are added for deft inclusion of the phrase “sectoral heterochromea.”

While the breezy yearning of “Miracle Aligner” has stylistic threads that connect to their debut album, it’s particularly notable as an example of how strong a pop song this group can produce, though with saucy lyrical twists: “He was born to blow your mind/Or something along those lines.”

With a melodramatic atmosphere worthy of a Roy Orbison pop opera, Turner details the inscrutable qualities of love on “Sweet Dreams, TN” like the funniest drunk in the bar. “It’s love like a tongue in a nostril,” he sings. “Love like an ache in the jaw.”

Sounding like a comedown soundtrack, “The Dream Synopsis” starts with an entirely appropriate Shadow Puppets opening line: “Well, we were kissing.” From there, Turner relates his sleeping adventures, only to amusingly note, “It must be torture when I talk about my dreams.” It’s a line that tilts toward honesty rather than self-deprecation, though for an album filled with lyrics that openly and entertainingly detail bald desire, Everything You’re Come to Expect hardly seems the place for either. (www.thelastshadowpuppets.com)

Reviews