Everything You've Come to Expect - The Last Shadow Puppets

All right, the time has come for this review: I've listened to the new album approximately 4,516,784 times. (Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but I'm sure Bryan would agree with the sentiment. Poor guy.) I've had time to let it sink in, study the lyrics like it was my job, and compare it to the 2008 album The Age of the Understatement.

That comparison between the two albums is no easy task. They're completely different animals. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's astounding to realize how much has changed in the past 8 years for these artists.

The title track is my absolute favorite song on here, closely followed by the wonderfully weird "Dracula Teeth" and the could've-been-ripped-from-Suck-It-and-See "Miracle Aligner." The three songs have been stuck in my head on a pretty regular rotation since the first time I listened. "The Element of Surprise" is a song that makes me want to be a better writer - it features some of the most clever lyrics I've ever heard. Some highlights:

• "There's a set of rickety stairs / In between my heart and my head / And there ain't much that ever bothers going up them."
• "Why colour in the lines if you're just painting it black?"
• "I thought they were kisses but apparently not / Do you end all your messages with an 'X marks the spot'?"

...I get jealous just typing those up. I wish I'd thought of them first.

Unlike The Age of the Understatement, though, there are some dull spots on the album: I never really register that "Used to Be My Girl" and "She Does the Woods" are two different songs, because neither one grabs my attention. Then there's "Bad Habits," which is easily the worst song on the record. By far. I'm not one to skip tracks as I listen to albums, because I like to hear how artists weave their overall stories, but in this case, I'm tempted to do it every time that song comes on. You could even guess it's a clunker just by looking at it on the page: it has half the lyrics of any other songs on the album, and is populated instead by over-the-top, stereotypical-rock-star "oohs" and "yeahs." I'm cringing just thinking about it. The best part about it is that it's pretty short, so it doesn't completely cloud my view of the rest of the album.

At the end of the day, I think the biggest takeaway from this album is that it is most definitely Alex Turner's side project. The Age of the Understatement was very much a dual effort between Turner and Miles Kane, and it comes across as a carefully-crafted masterpiece of a debut. Everything You've Come to Expect is much less balanced; Kane may have suggested a few lines here and there, but the bulk of the writing has Turner's fingerprints all over it. This is definitely a fun album to listen to, but it's definitely not what I was expecting as an Age of the Understatement follow-up.

(Sorry. Couldn't resist the cheese. They made it so easy. An apology video.)

The Excitement Builds

I'll admit I don't actually have anything to review at the moment, since 99% of my energy is going to Olivia these days, but I've been missing this blog. I've got three different books started at the moment, but I'm far from finished with any of them. (For the curious, those are Unnatural Creatures, edited by Neil Gaiman; The Best American Short Stories of 2015, edited by T. C. Boyle and Heidi Pitlor; and The Girl in the Spider's Web (A Lisbeth Salander Novel), by David Lagercrantz.) I'm still devouring The Magicians on Syfy as fast as they can air new episodes, although I've completely given up on any comparison to their source material. And, of course, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Everything You've Come to Expect, which will finally be available this Friday. Basically, I've got a lot going on but nothing that warranted its own blog post. So, I decided I'd modify my own rules for this space a bit.

I wanted to tell you guys that I'm excited. Excited to read these books, even if I can only do so in 10- or 20-minute increments during my daughter's cat naps. Excited to get back to writing my own book, even if I have to wait until she's down for the night to steal a little bit of time with pen and paper before I go to bed myself. Excited to bring some of the artwork in my head to life, although I haven't quite figured out when I can fit that into my new routine. (The ideas are currently just...maturing? We'll say they're maturing. That sounds plausibly productive.) Caring for a newborn is by far the hardest thing I have ever done, and it's overwhelming and rewarding and frustrating and hilarious all at once, but it has also been exactly the inspiration I needed to let go of some of the things I've been stressing over and start dreaming again. I want Olivia to grow up with a mother who trusts her own intuition, not a mother who got lost in a existential crisis because her life goals didn't necessarily match anyone's expectations.

I'm sure this all sounds very cliché to some, but to a new mother who is only beginning to stumble out of the "no sleep" fog, it feels like a revelation. Maybe I'm just delirious and hopped up on caffeine, but feeling my creativity return after months of second-guessing every decision I've made in the past year is the biggest weight off my shoulders I could possibly imagine.

Long story short, keep watching this space for upcoming reviews and other news as it comes up! At the very least, I'll be back soon with my thoughts on The Last Shadow Puppets' second album and probably a few schemes about how I might possibly manage to see them play at Lollapalooza this summer. When I find time to get some artwork underway, the VanDuinen Studio Facebook page will get a lot more active, so feel free to follow that if you're so inclined. I've also got my work out to several short story contests at the moment, so fingers crossed on that front!

And now, to sleep. At least for an hour or two.

Upcoming Treasures

How are we all doing? Recovered from the holiday madness? I, for one, had forgotten what a real Monday felt like, but my memory has been cruelly jogged...

Many, many things are happening here in the near future, and I'm looking forward to almost all of it! I'm not sure I'm sold on the impending lack of sleep, but I'm told that comes hand-in-hand with the baby snuggles I will definitely appreciate. Besides the looming due date, my excitement continues to build for the new Last Shadow Puppets album (they've released two goofy, uninformative trailers here and here), and there are also two books I'm really looking forward to reading as soon as they drop:

Medusa's Web - Tim Powers

This one is coming soon, expected out January 19! Tim Powers is a very weird, very inventive author. If you're not familiar with his work, I'd highly recommend either Three Days to Never or Hide Me Among the Graves. (I've heard Declare is also amazing, but I haven't had a chance to read that one yet.) With any of his books, you accept from page 1 that this isn't real life, and then you settle in and enjoy the ride. There are ghosts, monsters, and magic in abundance. His 1992 novel, Last Call, reminded me of a hyper-violent, Vegas-centric version of Neil Gaiman's American Gods, if that provides any useful frame of reference for you. I've loved reading about the supernatural since I was a very young oddball, and Tim Powers' work feels like the grown-up version of all the ghost stories I used to gobble up like candy each time my parents took me to the library. Needless to say, I'm going to put my name on the library's wait list for this one as soon as I finish this blog post.

The City of Mirrors - Justin Cronin

Also a master of the fantasy novel, Justin Cronin's third book of The Passage trilogy is due out this May. If you don't mind a little (okay, a full ton) of gore, this trilogy is epic. The books are huge, and the characters are widely varied and compelling. The villains are....sort of vampires, definitely genetic experiments gone horribly wrong. Take it as a cautionary tale of why the government should probably not try and manipulate human DNA to create perfect, nearly indestructible weapons. The risks outweigh the rewards.

PSA for Music Lovers

My dream is finally coming true: The Last Shadow Puppets are returning with another record!

Who are The Last Shadow Puppets, you ask? It's a small, British supergroup comprised of the lead singer and guitarist for the Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner; current solo artist Miles Kane, who is perhaps best known for his work with The Rascals; and Simian Mobile Disco member James Ford. They dropped The Age of the Understatement in 2008, and it is fantastic. My personal favorite track is My Mistakes Were Made For You, but there isn't a bad song on there.

All three bandmates have expressed the desire to work together again, but after the Age of the Understatement tour, they all pursued their separate careers for several years. The Arctic Monkeys have been particularly successful, with their latest record (AM, 2013) making waves on a global scale. Thankfully, for obsessive freaks like me, AM was so successful that the band has been taking a break from recording since then, leaving Alex Turner with an open schedule for returning to The Last Shadow Puppets. He did, they've recorded, and we can expect the as-yet-unnamed record to drop sometime in 2016! Cue dancing in circles around my bewildered husband...

Bonus track, because I couldn't actually pick a favorite (the song starts around the 1:49 mark): Standing Next To Me