The Arctic Monkeys (Website / Myspace) were the shit. Last January, they had the biggest pre-album buzz since The Strokes thanks to the NME, who always seem to pick a name out of a hat and get lucky. At the beginning of every year they champion a new British band to be the new shit. This isn’t the official title they give, but going on the third sentence of this review and already two mentions, I think it should be. They usually get it right, as some of my favourite bands were chosen to be oversaturated with music press: The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party. And yes, when the video for “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” came out, it showed that the Arctic Monkeys were rock solid. But this wasn’t just buzz, they went on to have the fastest selling album in the UK since Oasis with 2006’s Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not, despite the awful album title. It was a solid album.
It is with all this in mind that I tell you how disappointed I am with the new Arctic Monkeys single. Granted, there hasn’t been an official release of the single, I’ve just been listening to a rip of the radio session on Mark Riley’s BBC Radio show. You can check out that same version below. Unless the highly unlikely happens, and the actual released version is far different, I don’t see how I’m going to buy the second Monkeys’ album. On top of the fact that I am bitter towards the song because it is close to impossible to find a song called “Brianstorm” when you think it’s called “Brainstorm”, it genuinely does bite the big one. Any recognizable good trait of the band is drowned out by the terribly loud punk/metal drums. But even if you can listen past that, they’re trying to sing this dark song about the troubles of the main character Brian. Why? Is this supposed to be a misunderstood moody masterpiece? The reason they were great is they played straightforward, energetic, danceable, rocking, fun tunes. This is none of the above. Not only have they lost the fun, they don’t seem to be as clever, even shouting out “See you later innovator” as if it’s a really good line. It’s not.
“Brianstorm” from Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007) 
Arctic Monkeys - Brianstorm
No one will ever dance to this song. But having seen this type of thing before, the second LP entitled Favourite Worst Nightmare (second bad album title) to be released on April 23 is probably gonna be a hit, maybe even a North American breakthough album. Go figure.
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