Favourite Worst Nightmare

アークティック・モンキーズ過去作 1stアルバム～5thアルバムまでの輸入盤CDが紙ジャケット仕様の新装盤としてリリース!!

Breathless praise is a time-honored tradition in British pop music, but even so, the whole brouhaha surrounding the 2006 debut of the Arctic Monkeys bordered on the absurd. It wasn't enough for the Arctic Monkeys to be the best new band of 2006; they had to be the saviors of rock & roll. Lead singer/songwriter Alex Turner had to be the best songwriter since Noel Gallagher or perhaps even Paul Weller, and their debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, at first was hailed as one of the most important albums of the decade, and then, just months after its release, NME called it one of the Top Five British albums ever. Heady stuff for a group just out of their teens, and they weathered the storm with minimal damage, losing their bassist but not their sense of purpose as they coped in the time-honored method for young bands riding the wave of enormous success: they kept on working. All year long they toured, rapidly writing and recording their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, getting it out just a little over a year after their debut, a speedy turnaround by any measure. Some may call it striking when the iron is hot, cashing in while there's still interest, but Favourite Worst Nightmare is the opposite of opportunism: it's the vibrant, thrilling sound of a band coming into its own. The Arctic Monkeys surely showed potential on Whatever People Say I Am, but their youthful vigor often camouflaged their debt to other bands. Here, they're absorbing their influences, turning their liberal borrowings from the Libertines, the Strokes, and the Jam into something that's their own distinct identity. Unlike any of those three bands, however, the Arctic Monkeys haven't stumbled on their second album; they haven't choked on hubris, they haven't overthought their sophomore salvo, nor have they cranked it out too quickly. That constant year of work resulted in startling growth as the band is testing the limits of what they can do and where they can go. Favourite Worst Nightmare hardly abandons the pleasures of their debut but instead frantically expands upon them. They still have a kinetic nervous energy, but this isn't a quartet that bashes out simply three-chord rock & roll. The Monkeys may start with an infectious riff, but then they'll violently burst into jagged yet tightly controlled blasts of post-punk squalls, or they'll dress a verse with circular harmonies as they do at the end of "Fluorescent Adolescent." Their signature is precision, evident in their concise songs, deftly executed instrumental interplay, and the details within Turner's wry wordplay, which is clever but never condescending. Indeed, the remarkable thing about the Arctic Monkeys -- which Favourite Worst Nightmare brings into sharp relief -- is their genuine guilelessness, how they restructure classic rock cliches in a way that pays little mind to how things were done in the past, and that all goes back to their youth. Born in the '80s and raised on the Strokes and the Libertines, they treat all rock as a level playing field, loving its traditions but not seeing musical barriers between generations, since the band learned all of rock history at once and now spit it all out in a giddy, cacophonous blend of post-punk and classic rock that sounds fresh, partially because they jam each of their very songs with a surplus of ideas. Some of this was true on their debut album, but it's the restlessness of Favourite Worst Nightmare that impresses -- they're discovering themselves as they go and, unlike so many modern bands, they're interested in the discovery and not appearances. They'll venture into darker territory, they'll slow things down on "Only Ones Who Know," they'll play art punk riffs without pretension. Here, they sound like they'll try anything, which makes this a rougher album in some ways than their debut, which indeed was more cohesive. All the songs on Whatever shared a similar viewpoint, whereas the excitement here is that to be continued...

まさかあれほど愛したアークティック・モンキーズのデビュー作を、あっさり超えるほど好きになれるセカンド・アルバムを作るとは。そんな奇跡を、この4人の場合はあきらかな〈変化への意志〉と共に生み出した。ありえない。デビュー当時のインタビューで、「流行とは離れた場所で常に新しい音を作りたい」と話してくれたヴォーカルのアレックス・ターナー。その言葉どおり、このアルバムはどれをとっても現在のUK&USで鳴っているサウンドとは違う。ダイナミズム上等!なドラムは多彩なリズムを展開し、ギターは時にヘヴィーに、時に空間を活かし、華やかさを加える。カウンター・メロディーとして鳴るベースも通常のギター・ロックにはありえない存在感を持つし、そもそも曲の構造そのものが〈ポップ・ミュージック〉の常識を気持ち良く無視。そのすべてをアレックスによる言葉数の多いメロディーラインが先導する、その総合力こそが奇跡的。「生まれ変わるんじゃなくて、前に進んで進化する能力を持っていること。進化するのを恐れないということ。そしてポップ・ミュージックなんだけど、深みのあるおもしろいポップ・ミュージックを作りたいということ、かな」――このアルバムを完成させて気付いたという〈自分たちらしさ〉について問うと、アレックスはそう答えた。いまも変わらず冷静に、自分を見つめる彼。この回答こそがその内容のすべてを伝えている一枚だ。
bounce (C)妹沢 奈美

UK／USを中心に爆発的な盛り上がりを見せていたニュー・レイヴ・リヴァイヴァルが尻すぼみ状態となり、終焉へと向かっていた2005年下半期。そんなシーンの重苦しい空気をたった一枚のEPで吹き飛ばし、全世界をあっと言わせたのがアークティック・モンキーズだ。インターネット上での口コミから火が着いて、翌年にリリースしたデビュー・アルバムをあっさりチャート1位に放り込み、オアシス以降のUKで最大のバンドとなった……と、ここまで夢物語のような快進撃を続けてきた彼らが、1年半というインターヴァルを経て待望のニュー・アルバムを完成させた。血管沸騰必至のビートと瞬発力抜群のアークティック節は今作でも健在だが、同時にハード・ロック的な要素が加わるなど革命的な変化も遂げている（デビュー前に彼らはダットサンズのコピーをしていたり、ギターのジェイミー・クックがシステム・オブ・ア・ダウンの大ファンとのことなので、この変化には大いに頷けるのだが……）。ひとつ戸惑う点は、前作での“Fake Tales Of San Francisco”や“I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”のようなキラー・トラックがないところ。ありったけのフックを前面に押し出した前作とは違い、今作はあきらかに聴き手にさまざまな発見をさせようとしている攻撃的かつ実験的な作品で、なるほど、聴くたびに新たな表情を見せて彼らが現在やりたかったことが少しずつ浮き彫りになっていく。つまり、ほっぺにニキビの残る少年たちが作ったとは到底思えない挑戦的な傑作なのだ。〈夢物語〉はこうして伝説への階段を登りはじめた!
bounce (C)白神 篤史