When a musician has been as prolific as Alex Turner has recently, it's easy to forget that they haven't been around forever. Still only 22 years of age, Turner has been involved in more musical projects than most of his peers put together (guesting with acts as diverse as Dizzee Rascal and Reverend and the Makers alongside his day-job as Arctic Monkeys supremo) - and has excelled at pretty much everything, too. The Last Shadow Puppets sees him buddy up with former Little Flame and current Rascal Miles Kane, to attempt a style that neither indie boy has turned their hand to before.
No, you won't find any of the semi-comical vignettes of urban strife that Arctic Monkeys are renowned for here; The Age of the Understatement sees the duo revisit a golden era of music, when smooth love songs, quiffs and Rickenbackers were staples of the Top 10. Reviews have cited Scott Walker's influence more frequently than any other, but there are nods to The Shadows (on Separate and Ever Deadly, and the gentle dodgem-bump of I Don't Like You Anymore) here, too. What's more, practically every track here could pass for a Bond theme, thanks to Owen Pallet's (a.k.a. Final Fantasy) magnificent, emotive string arrangements.
Where The Age of the Understatement briefly falters, however, is on the pointless dual-vocal approach of the title track and Meeting Place (an otherwise gorgeously-rounded, Dusty Springfield-esque pop tune) - Turner and Kane's vocals are far too similar for such a tactic to prove effective. Still, on an album that flits between suave '70s pop, lavish, grandiose torch songs and rollicking rock 'n' roll made for the clientele of a Workingman's Club in North Yorkshire, vocal delivery is rendered temporarily trivial. Will Turner's well of vision, ideas and remarkable songwriting talent ever run dry?
