Pitchfork

Throughout the meteoric rise of Arctic Monkeys, frontdude Alex Turner never came across in interviews as the kind of guy who believed his own hype. But confidence shone through in his argot-rich lyrical details, as well as in-- on quite good 2007 sophomore album Favourite Worst Nightmare-- signs of musical growth beyond NME-approved post-Libertines meat-and-three-veg rock conservatism. Turner's budding ambition and maturity seem to have grown into his always-considerable songwriting talents in "The Age of the Understatement", the title track from the Sheffield, UK singer's forthcoming album with longtime chum the Rascals' Miles Kane. As the Last Shadow Puppets, the two sneer about "affection to rent" or worse as loose, sproingy guitars and tambourine-splashed drums duel in bullfighter cadences beneath the vast sky of Owen Pallett's Morricone-grand orchestration. Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford, who produced the Arctics' (and Klaxons') latest, is at the helm again on the most cinematic Turner-related track yet. It's anything but understated.

The video, too, deserves a big screen, or at least to be seen in its high-res version. A zamboni takes the ice, and Pallett indulges in some Psycho string stabs, as a figure skater reminiscent of a young Tara Lipinski nervously starts her routine. Suddenly we're whisked away to a battlefront, Turner and Kane standing like Prince Harry (or, in their mop-tops and dark-coated, unsmiling mien, the Beatles for Sale-era Fab Four) amid a row of tanks. A young woman soldier appears as the duo sing, "Be careful of her brigade/ In order to tame this relentless marauder/ Move away from the parade". A choir of male soldiers booms, horns swoon, whips crack-- all anything but (Turner's word) "bedraggled"-- and a Jon Lovitz-looking creep disgustingly sniffs a young woman's hair at the cinema, where a chubby kid eats sweets. A priest and a pious old woman freak out. Quoth Turner, "And she would throw her feather boa in the road/ If she thought that it would set the scene." Consider that shit set.

Video:> The Last Shadow Puppets: "The Age of the Understatement"
[from The Age of the Understatement, due 04/21/08 in the UK and 05/06/08 in the U.S. on Domino]