The Last Shadow Puppets are back after 8 years, the duo made up of the Arctic Monkeys superstar Alex Turner and ex The Rascals frontman Miles Kane. The first album was somewhat average in my opinion but I was still excited for this album because I know the meta music that these two can make separately. As Arctic Monkeys are one of my favourite bands, and I consider Alex Turner as one of the best songwriters out there at the moment, with amazing songs dating back to the days of Whatever People Say I Am in 2006, not to mention Miles Kane's solo albums are extremely good albums full of toe tappers and stadium fillers, when I saw him live 2 years ago he put on an incredible performance which marked one of the best shows I've been to simply for the vibe and performance from Mr Kane himself.
Now the record opens up with the incredible 'Aviation', this song blends the mix of their completely different voice performances perfectly, it's slow but ups the temp for the chorus perfectly. There's also a clear mix of Kane's guitar skills with some Monkeys-esque drumming in there aswell. This song has pretty much been on constant repeat since I first heard it back just before the albums release. Now the second song on the album, Miracle Aligner, is by far and away the highlight of the album. It contains some really soulful singing from Alex Turner, a theme of this album, with a toned down Miles Kane which is also a theme on this album. Now, this song right here will never leave your head once it gets stuck in there, it's been stuck in mine for days now and the same applies to Bad Habits which really sets this album up there the more and more you listen to it.
The first single off the album, Bad Habits, never really stuck with me mainly due tot he fact that the guitars seem kind of lazy and although it's more up tempo than the rest of the album it never really gets anywhere and after a while it just becomes annoying and really skippable on the album. Not to mention, the fact that the rest of the album is really mellow and chilled out and the hard hitting guitars and high hats on this album make it just intrude on the feeling and the vibe of the album. The title track of the album is really something that also stands out, I believe this was released as a single merely days before the release of the album on April 1st. This song just really hits that slow vibe that is commonplace and it hits it well, mainly due to the soft and soothing vocals of Alex Turner and basically the complete lack of any overbearing instrumentation, with incredibly shy guitars and slow drum beats.
And this is something that becomes apparent throughout the album, Alex Turner had a lot more creative control over this than Miles Kane did, because this album could easily fit in with Humbug era Arctic Monkeys and a few songs hark back to AM in 2013 but it bears no representation of any of Miles Kane's solo music and on some of the songs you would do well to pick out the parts where he comes in and out because ultimately Alex Turner is the driving force behind this and Miles Kane merely plays a passing part every now and then. Also, the album really follows through with the softness of both artists here, and although that isn't particularly a bad side, it's not a very exciting one and at the end of the day, even though I didn't like the song, I would of liked more songs like Bad Habits towards the end of the album just to perk it up to get it over the finish line, because ultimately you can actually forget that this album is on, and the last few tracks just merge into one, and become extremely forgettable.
The album has its ups and it has its downs, song like Miracle Aligner, Everything You've Come To Expect and Dracula Teeth really pose some incredible musical moments on this album but after the first half it really starts to fall off, now don't let the score fool you, I recommend that you listen to it because I can see others loving this album from start to finish but I can guarantee that you will finish the album realising that the first half received a lot more effort than the second half.
6.5/10