Arctic Monkeys, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino album review: One giant leap

On their sixth album, the Sheffield band land on something creative, intriguing and completely different

What the f*** are the Arctic Monkeys? Sixteen years in and the Sheffield-formed rock band continue to surpass and subvert expectations. When guitar music seemed to be undergoing a painful death thanks to the likes of Razorlight and Kings of Leon, they gave us AM in 2013, an absolute belter of a rock album with unexpected but brilliant nods to hip hop and R&B. And now this.

Given their constant switch-ups on style and sound per album, it’s doubtful anyone expected the band to make another AM. But what they’ve landed on with Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is arguably the biggest leap of their career so far – and one where the band extended an invitation to their studio at La Frette, so musician friends from Mini Mansions, Tame Impala and Klaxons could join in the fun.

It’s loaded with cultural references, which is something frontman Alex Turner had previously designated to his other projects, but are now placed deftly onto a layout that reads more like a short novel than any traditional songwriting structure. And that word “traditional” is important for anyone who asked why there were no singles released before the album dropped – there are no singles on this album. Not traditional ones, anyway.

Occasionally you do feel as though Turner is trying too hard to be clever, or just that you’re not invited in on the joke, which can be isolating as a listener, but fun if you just go with it. He even alludes to the possibility himself on “Science Fiction”: “I tried to write a song to make you blush, but I’ve a feeling that the whole thing may well just end up being too clever for its own good, the way some science fiction does.”

Lyrics on each song are rambling, stream-of-consciousness style; more like diary entries by one of the hotel occupants. It’s obviously the concept of the whole album, but that style may also stem from how Turner wrote this album on the piano for the first time – that meandering style brings to mind someone figuring out a melody. “Four out of Five” is one of the tighter songs on the record; the thud of the bass and Turner’s keen falsetto on the intro precede a controlled, staccato mutter: “Hokey Cokey with the opposite sex. The things you try to forget, doesn’t time fly.”

And the words themselves are glorious, as frequently absurd and brilliantly imaginative as some of the best sci-fi writers – Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick, HG Wells – while the instrumentation recalls their cinematic adaptations, or classic superhero cartoons. On “Batphone” there’s a comical, jaunty line (a rare moment that seems to recall a little of AM) over the heavier thump of Turner’s Steinway – “Have I told you all about the time I got sucked into a hole through a handheld device?” he asks. Killer Pink Flamingos, indeed.

Much has been made over the years of Turner’s voice. Of course it’s changed – stylistically but also the accent – living out in LA will do that to you. But then you listen to “One Point Perspective”: “I’m gonna form a covers band anorl” or “Golden Trunks”: “He’s got him sen a theme tune” and the Sheffield boy is still there. He flips with ease from a Bowie-style drawl to the falsetto and to a gruff murmur on the same song like the driver who scored that “World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip”.

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino feels more like an interlude between AM and a seventh Arctic Monkeys album – a delve into the bizarre, where even the Steinway has its own character. On “The Ultracheese” the descending piano chords symbol a kind of final bow; the last soliloquy of the night before the curtain closes. Few bands today are as brave as this.