Jobie's Bite-Sized Music Reviews #38: Favourite Worst Nightmare (album) - Arctic Monkeys
- arrangednoisefan
- Jun 21, 2022
- 2 min read
Recommended
Favourite Worst Nightmare is a 2007 post-punk revival, indie rock, and garage rock album by American rock band Arctic Monkeys. It is their second studio album, released a year after their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. The sound of the album is varied, but can best be summarized as energetic rock music that has loads of texture and variation. Arctic Monkeys make use of breakdowns, riffs, and a ton of other things that make each song pop. One track, “Only Ones Who Know” is the only track that doesn't use drums or the guitars found on the rest of the album. It instead uses what sounds like an acoustic guitar, and is played at a much slower pace than the rest of the album. The fact that this track sounds good, despite how different it is from the rest of the album, proves the Arctic Monkeys are fully capable of exploring other types of sounds. One of the best sounding parts of the album has to be within the song “This House is a Circus”, during the instrumental break that comes after the lines “Like a search for murder clues/In a dead man's eyes”. It sounds amazing, and is probably one of the best instrumental breaks on the album (although the other instrumental breaks on this album sound great as well – the instrumental break in “If You There, Beware” sounds really good too). Vocally speaking, Alex Turner does a great job of delivering every single lyric on this album. His voice fits very well with the instrumentals on this album, and it's difficult to imagine anyone else singing lead vocals on this album. Lyrically, the album is very well written. The album has many different lyrical themes, whether that be stories about people that Arctic Monkeys have encountered (“Brianstorm”), an introspective on the music industry (“Teddy Picker”, “This House is a Circus”), relationships (“Balaclava”, “505”, etc.), or the paparazzi (“If You Were There, Beware”). The point is, Arctic Monkeys know how to write about a variety of things, and they do it well. My favorites tracks from Favourite Worst Nightmare are “Brianstorm”, “Balaclava”, “This House is a Circus”, and “Old Yellow Bricks”. Overall, Favourite Worst Nightmare is an excellent album from Arctic Monkeys. With well-written lyrics, great (and variable) instrumentals, great vocals, and, in general, an excellent sound, this album manages to be consistently great, track after track. If you haven't already listened to this album, I really recommend you do so, as there's a high chance you'll enjoy this album.
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