New Arctic Monkeys: "Crying Lightning"

Holy heck, y'all. New Arctic Monkeys single "Crying Lightning" came out on Tuesday the 7th, and it is a doozy. If this isn't the strongest single off of the upcoming album, I don't know what I'll do. Poop, probably. This jam is so the jam. I'm at a loss for words. You can grab it off of iTunes or stream it HERE.

The bass-line is one of my favorite by the Monkeys, and definitely my favorite bass-line of 2009 thus far. So cheers to bassist Nick O'Malley for that. The drumming, as should be expected, is propulsive and punctilious, thanks to the always reliable Matt Helders. I'd like to say the song shows vocalist/songwriter Alex Turner finally coming into his own as a songwriter, but, truth be told, the kid was pretty much cream the crop to begin with. But the emotions he conjures on this song show him at the top of his game, not only lyrically, but vocally as well. The first verse and bridge find Turner trading in his trademark rapid-fire turns of phrases for a smoke-and-shadows whisper, which suits him so so well (the way the word "gobstopper" just nonchalantly rolls out of his mouth). But by the second verse, we're back to the snark and bite that we all know and love. The real highlight, however, comes during the song's final chorus. After the final bridge. Just after Turner sings "crying lightning" for the fourth time. Right at the 3.21 mark. It's only a one-syllable word: "your." Yep. That's it. But the way he sings it, at the end of his last breath, where he should have taken a big gulp of air before delivering the next line, but instead he just pushes it out, as if waiting another second would be beyond bearable. He impels that "your" out of his body, and as a result that word carries the emotional weight of the entire song. All the frustration, all the indignity, all the contempt, all the vitriol, packed into a four letter possessive adjective.