Cool band plus cool producer: what could acceptable go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turns out, because Arctic Monkeys and their tendered partner, Queens of the Stone Age’s front man, Josh Homme, seem to have no middle ground. No enjoyable middle ground, anyway. The band strain to reach their idea of what this collaboration might be and sound only, well, strained. It’s not a consumed album (Alex Turner’s lyrics are always worth a listen), but the wrong headedness of the link up is accented by the best track, Cornerstone (produced by James Ford), a lovely, natural, unpressured song that sits in more familiar Monkeys territory and is all the better for it. The music press have already approvaled Humbug, but I’m taking bets on the band’s next album being taged “a come back to form”; by then, this one will be seen as an intriguing but needless amusement.
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