On their 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys took a dramatic turn for the cosmic. The band’s sixth album, Tranquility Base saw singer and songwriter Alex Turner, drummer Matt Helders, bass player Nick O’Malley and guitarist Jamie Cook ditch the muscular arena-rock sound of 2013’s AM in favour of sleazy, absurdist lounge pop. On each song, Turner sang from the perspective of some kind of rakish, wine-drunk loser, becoming a lounge lizard singing at the album’s titular casino and a property developer ranting about his gentrification of the moon’s surface. Released without any advance singles, it was Arctic Monkeys’ most obtuse record yet – an artistic triumph that, nonetheless, seemed to alienate fans more accustomed to their booming, riff-heavy earlier work.
