The Last Shadow Puppets: The Age Of The Understatement : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

As the leader of Britain's Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner creates spiky neo-post-punk that avoids any revivalist fuddy-duddyism. But Turner's new side project, a collaboration with Miles Kane of Merseyside indie-poppers the Rascals, is a shameless nostalgia trip — and it's still compelling. Their debut pays homage to the moody symphonic sound of early David Bowie, Lee Hazlewood and other stars of the late Sixties and early Seventies. While reverb-swathed acoustic guitars churn in minor keys against a backdrop of swooping strings, Turner croons midnight-of-the-soul confessions: "It's torture/Locked inside the chamber/Cornered by yourself." The band cribs every string-orchestra glissando and flash of dissonance from cult singer Scott Walker's book, but the fierceness of the music — and of Turner's voice — makes the old moves sound fresh. In "Separate and Ever Deadly," he describes the pall that descends on his town after his girl leaves: "Now the pavements have nothing to offer/And all the faces seem to need a slap." He's got all the gloom of the misanthrope we know from Arctic Monkeys.