Music Review | Arctic Monkeys: Fast, Loud And Savage: Hey, Hey, They?re Arctic Monkeys

Alex Turner always acts as if hes trying hard to stave off boredom and barely succeeding. Onstage at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Tuesday night with his band, Arctic Monkeys, he glanced at the heaving crowd and said, Nice to see youre on your feet. Nice, maybe, but not surprising: there are no chairs on the main floor.

In 2006 Arctic Monkeys, from Sheffield, England, became one of the worlds most talked-about rock bands when they released Whatever People Say I Am, Thats What Im Not, a near-perfect debut album full of spiky little songs about, well, staving off boredom, mostly. Now barely a year later the band is on tour to support Favourite Worst Nightmare (Domino), the follow-up.

Like lots of second albums, this one feels more premeditated and less exciting than its predecessor. Last time Mr. Turners lyrics paid mordant tribute to aimless nightlife: These two lads squaring up proper, shouting bout who were next in the queue/The kind of thing thatd seem so silly, but not when theyve both had a few.

This time the tunes are more twisted and the lyrics more fragmented; instead of cutting through the din, Mr. Turners voice is part of it. Having been anointed the spokesman of young Britain, he just wants to be a lead singer again.

Luckily he has a smart and furious band behind him. On Tuesday Mr. Turner and his mates crammed 21 songs into little more than an hour, playing fast and loud and savage. Nick OMalley, the bassist who replaced Andy Nicholson, supplied restless rhythms to balance the syncopated guitar lines of Mr. Turner and Jamie Cook. Propelled by the drummer (and part-time singer) Matt Helders, they blasted through Teddy Picker, one of the feistiest new songs, hurtling toward Mr. Turners withering conclusion: Assuming that all things are equal/Whod want to be men of the people/When theres people like you?

Another highlight was Fluorescent Adolescent, a buoyant pop song about dashed expectations. But some songs from Favourite Worst Nightmare sounded a bit labored, even dull. This House Is a Circus has lots of interesting parts — a disco-

derived rhythm guitar line, a churning chorus, a series of unexpected breaks — but its not much fun. Or maybe thats the point. The lyrics may well describe a great singer in a bad mood: The more you open your mouth, the more youre forcing performance/All the attention is leading me to feel important.

Why wallow, though? Tuesdays set included most of the songs from the first album, and even Mr. Turner is hard-pressed to seem grumpy when hes singing The View from the Afternoon, a zippy and eloquent parable about the dangers of combining alcohol with text-messaging. Another song, another standing ovation, and so what if most of the crowd didnt have a choice?

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