There’s no getting around it- this review is overdue. It must be because I was just trying to create a long, drawn-out period of nail-biting suspense similar to the one leading up to the release of this album (released August 25th). Yep, that must be it. But it’s here! Well, they both are…and ready to please your senses to the utmost.

Humbug is the third full-length album of the Arctic Monkeys’ repertoire. They made their globally-acclaimed debut in 2006 with Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, charming us with pop-friendly hooks and the perfect amount of young English rebellion. Just a year later, they followed up with Favourite Worst Nightmare, where suddenly they’d replaced cheekiness with ambition and catchy hooks with heavier driving forces, plus some jaw-dropping “how’d-he-do-dat” drum work. As far as some fans were concerned, it was a new band. We’d clearly seen that Arctic Monkeys were not out to please anyone but rather to follow their own experimental urges…so what were we to expect with their much-anticipated third release?

My first impression of Humbug, released on my birthday, was heartbreak. A week later, I knew that it was the best birthday present I could’ve given myself.

With each listen, I gained more and more of an appreciation for the subtleties of the album and the palpable influence of producer Josh Homme (of Queens of the Stone Age). There is a heavier and more ominous feeling to the album as a whole, perhaps best demonstrated in the single “Crying Lightning” in which front man Alex Turner croons about a woman whose “past times consisted of the strange, and twisted and deranged”. The cryptic lyrics, along with the ambling quality of the verses, are what make the song strangely captivating. This is followed by “Dangerous Animals”, one of the few tracks with a distinct guitar hook reminiscent of past Monkeys favorites. There are, as always, some sweeter moments that come with songs like “Secret Door” and “Cornerstone”, a song in which Turner’s narrator longs to see a certain woman but instead keeps seeing her lookalikes in a series of pubs (wonder why…). Homme’s influence is probably most evident in “Pretty Visitors”, which features some impressive work by drummer Matt Helders and a haunting organ part (not to mention the line, “what came first, the chicken or the d***head?”- my personal favorite).

The fact that the Arctic Monkeys refuse to play it safe makes the album that much more intriguing. Even the name of the album, Humbug, is deceptive. While most of us associate the word with Ebenezer Scrooge’s hatred of Christmas, it also happens to be the name of a mint-flavored hard candy in the Monkeys’ home of the UK (who knew??). Maybe, like the candy, the album is hard to swallow at first but has a soft center that you’ll only find if you don’t spit it out. I should really stop making analogies to this album (but my English teacher would be proud).

8/10