AM

The more I've heard the main hits from Arctic Monkeys, most of which stem from this album - the more they tire me out without growing in any value. They start to feel more contrived and annoyingly reliant on the same passes and goes that sound fresh for five times and get obsolete the sixth time. This isn't how I should listen an album, looking for flaws by listening to songs over and over again but songs like "Do I wanna know" and "Snap out of it" have been heard around the world many times, making it easy to spot such flaws and dig them in each and every song. It blunts the boldness of it all.

The album has kind of an ambitious and original vibe going for it, I'll grant it that for sure. Rocking the edges off with highly skilled produced classical hard-rock while softening the blows of it's esteem for good measure, the album has a nice outline in which it cleverly stays. There is surely enough subdued power in AM but it has the little trouble that it might be too contained to match or contrast in a thoughtful way with the bleeding lyrics that are cynical like a cookie filled with arsenic - i'd hate to take a bit out of it. The album feels like it takes great lessons from the old school teachings of guitar and drum work and pairs them with all kinds of transitions and bridges that border being straight electronica, so it's basically an update to a genre to refreshen it's form.
One problem with it's production is that it lacks the grit or the smoothness in certain passages to fill out the void nicely with the coolness it wants to carry. The dullness of a very specific monotony starts to betray itself around midway through the album and rarely ever wears off - when an album starts to feel like a task, the artist has kind of failed for me.
The album supports itself on this rock that tries to be very underground but actually chews off a bigger piece than it can sustain but it also rests on a heavy line of bass like guided production which they really use as a handle to re-use and tie in riffs with in a matter that's really just too much sometimes.
It handles itself with a kind of intense afterparty sexiness where the blowout is stronger than it was when the party was at it's peak but it may forget to change in mood sometimes accordingly with the arc it is supposed to resemble. They're songs that pack more punch when they are played on themselves. I don't really like most of the vocals too, which sting with an ego that tries to emulate half a depressed fuckboy and an operatic punker - dressed up with a choir that seems to boost this effect by adding something that tries to gear up on empathy. It just misses something in creative choices that really convinces me of the depth of the lead singer's persona.
It's an album that nicely presents something from the past and the modern realm of music in a healthy way and often finds interesting points in which they seamlessly compliment each other but it is so finely tuned that the one trick pony has trouble doing a second trick which we don't even know if it attempts. It's a fine album in itself but it is so much more forgettable and far less iconic than the reputation has led us to believe. It's flaws really stood there naked by this listen, with the exact confidence it shouldn't really possess in all it's trouble to be polished or rich in material.

It's an album that seems to have the ambitions to raise it's own street credit by contriving an attitude that really updates the old but not always coming through with the abrasive, impulsiveness it very confidently seems to believe in. So, calling AM a bluff is a very big word but calling it overconfident in it's own skills compared with it's ambitions is a rather fit description for an album that isn't afraid to be boring but ends up being exactly that sometimes. Some people expect to carry themselves on an aesthetic that slowly starts to unravel when you spend too much time with them, AM is the proof that this can happen with albums as well.