So much has changed in the eight years since Miles Kane and Alex Turner unveiled the Scott Walker-inspired fruits of a French expedition to record ‘The Age Of The Understatement‘ that it seemed very possible a follow-up to the Mercury Prized nominated baroque-pop debut album may never see the light of day.
Despite the rising star of Miles Kane, formerly of The Little Flames and The Rascals, ever since as a solo artist in his own right, and Alex Turner’s sustained grip on the alternative guitar rock scene as Arctic Monkeys’ frontman and generational rock & roll icon, a recording session working on early material for Kane’s next record sparked a mutual feeling that the band should revisit the revered collaboration.
Much like the transition of Turner’s songwriting maturity and the Arctic Monkeys’ sound from fresh faced tales of teenage heartbreak and run-ins with bouncers on debut ‘Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not‘ to the swaggering genre spanning sounds found on ‘AM‘, ‘Everything You’ve Come to Expect‘ is the culmination of separately harnessed sounds combining together for a ripened exploration of lyrical and instrumental depth, representing more than enough to satiate the lengthy wait for new material from patient fans.
Lead track ‘Aviation’ should appease fans wary of any startling departure from previous orchestral themes, with Beatles-inspired sixties pop harmonies backed by the familiar string section in the chorus serving to remind us of the value of such a rarefied singing and songwriting partnership in today’s solo artist dominant era. Joint repetition in cries of, “Mama told me, you should start as you mean to go wrong”, highlight the gleefully abstract, playful word phrasing of which both Kane and Turner are at this point well accustomed to.
Whereas their debut held its earnestly soaring 60’s influences aloft, the hazily seductive ‘Miracle Aligner’ signifies an early foray into bleary-eyed 70’s soul and soft rock, featuring a soothing vocal delivery from Turner and thinly veiled, forthright lyrics in lines such as, “Miracle Aligner, go and get them tiger, get down on your knees again”, as a far cry from the introspective starry-eyed musings of the previous offering.
The expansive nature of the album grows ever wider with the seemingly ironically named title-track. Delving into true seventies-era psychedelia not too dissimilar to the jazz and reggae inspired sounds of The Bees, Turner and Kane deliver arguably the most disarmingly vivid track on the record. Spritely piano backs rising falsetto vocals and foreboding string interludes with undeniable ‘Turner-isms’, engendering images of sleepy Côte d’Azur beach scenes highlighted in the form of imagery laden figurative language.
Kane takes the lead on 60’s psych garage-rock track ‘Bad Habits’, spitting down the microphone in repeated refrain of the title lyric. This once alarmingly buoyant initial single no longer seems out of keeping with the associated sound of the band when placed carefully at the mid-section of an LP otherwise treading a solitary path of dreamily intoxicating diversions.
This segues into the near-parody of a joyous Nashville crooner given a Sheffield twang twist, with Turner providing an increasingly soaring delivery of a protagonist in the infatuated early throws of romance on album standout ‘Sweet Dreams, TN’, including a seemingly unending string of superlative laden rhyming couplets.
The thundering bassline and lightning bolt featuring guitar thrusts of thrilling garage-rock homage ‘Used To Be My Girl’ paves the way for a closing streak of Turner led numbers such as ‘The Dream Synopsis’ which draw closely from his nostalgically tinged acoustic EP penned back in 2011 for cult-indie cinema hit Submarine.
Regardless of a flirtation with many different seventies music sub-cultures, ‘Everything You’ve Come To Expect’ represents a truly cohesive sophomore record. While music often reminds us of a particular time or place in our lives, Turner and Kane’s advancement into their early thirties is portrayed on an album conjuring up alluring imagery of near unreality in its exploratory nature, of which it can only be hoped they continue to venture.
