Rough Draft: Arctic Monkeys

This sucker won't run until Thursday. Here's what I'm currently grinding out... (Cliffs Notes version: Not as fun as the first one.)

When we first met the Arctic Monkeys, the blue-collar scruffs from Sheffield, England, could barely afford to buy a girl a drink.

Their debut disc, 2006’s revelatory Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, was built on frustration and instinct, as the indie kids raged about being poor, raising hell, getting snubbed by rich girls, repeat, repeat, repeat. The album sounded like it was recorded in one take — or as long as it took the band to chain-smoke a carton of cheap cigs.

Thanks in part to the raw guitars, frisky beats and cash-poor malaise, the Monkeys became the fastest-selling new band in British history, moving 400,000 copies of Whatever in its first week. Overnight, the Monkeys, all just 19- and 20-years-old, went from struggling to famous, suddenly having fat wallets to woo the upper-class birds.

That was great news for the Monkeys — but what about their music? What does whiplash success do to a band that’s inspired by fast food, romantic rejection and living check to check? The bittersweet answer is found on the new Favourite Worst Nightmare, as anticipated a sophomore effort as we’ll see all year.

Led by singer-guitarist-lyricist Alex Turner, the simian-in-chief, the Monkeys continue to rockabout the beauties and beasties they meet in the clubs they loiter. But this time, fame has provided a new vantage point.

Opening cut Brianstorm, about a nouveau riche Lothario, is their fastest, hardest song yet. It’s a speed-metal indictment of a ladykilling creep who seduces women into his posh jacuzzi. But it’s not just a cheap dig. With his guitar sounding like it’s surfing a fatal wave, Turner is unnerved by this dude, realizing that the titular Brian is exactly who he doesn’t want to be.

A steady touring schedule has made the Monkeys become far better musicians, and that, oddly enough, is where the bad news starts. What’s missing from Nightmare is that previous sense of recklessness, pent-up aggression that could (and did) explode at any second. The Monkeys are now more polished, more controlled, their songs featuring layers and layers of fancy parts.

Unfortunately, the band is also more stable, more sane, more content. Teddy Picker ridicules the machinations of fame, including the soulless entertainment press. But the song’s rebellion sounds forced; it’s missing the crucial ingredient of genuine emotion. Often a wickedly acerbic songwriter, Turner just can’t muster the knockout punch.

The most troubling part of the new album, however, is that the Monkeys don’t seem to be having much fun. In fact, on the gauzy romance of Only Ones Who Know, the band gets a bad case of the touchy-feely Coldplay blahs. Yes, there were slow songs on the first disc, but they were hungover laments about slagging the cops. Big difference.

Favourite Worst Nightmare was turned around lickety-split to ride the band’s buzz, and it’s still more inventive than most rock albums out there. But as their star continues to rise, the band has a big challenge ahead of them. Where does a previously poor Monkey find passion, grit and fire when his pint glass is always full, the rich girls won’t stay away and the world expects greatness with every hot lick?