"I poured my aching heart into a pop song/ I couldn't get the hang of poetry": a line from the title track of the Arctic Monkeys' fourth studio offering, Suck It and See, pretty much sums things up really. The new album is a poppy selection of songs about being in love and the perils of youth, which showcases Alex Turner's distinctive vocals - but the lyrics are terrible.
Songs such as "Piledriver Waltz", "The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala" and "Library Pictures" sound like they've been assembled using literary fridge magnets, so random are the descriptive couplings of words. Naturally, artistic licence determines that songs don't have to make perfect literal sense, but chucking about word combinations such as "acrobatic blood", "quickening canoe" and, most impressively, "she's got a telescopic hallelujah hanging upon the wall" seems a bit poetically try-hard.
This rather original use of language sometimes works, such as the second song, "Black Treacle", which describes the sticky darkness of a starless night sky. The new record also retains some of the energetic vibrancy of 2007's Favourite Worst Nightmare, but it rings hollow compared with the clearer-sighted lyrical charm of the group's 2006 debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.
Musically, Suck It and See sounds like the band read the rather mixed reviews which greeted Humbug, their last album, and decided to stop rocking out and go back to pop music. The Beach Boys and Sixties influences are still heavily in evidence. Having created the fastest-selling UK debut in history when they were still in teen-angst mode is probably one reason Arctic Monkeys haven't matured as far as might be expected in the last five years. The band's biggest triumph is how carefully honed their signature sound remains. However, a sense that they are trying to be cute or self-consciously naïve by constantly parodying their youthfulness is slightly irritating.
Watch the video for "Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair" from Suck It and See