Arctic Monkeys – AM

There’s an audacity to the way the Arctic Monkeys’ fifth album gathers disparate musical threads—West Coast hip-hop, heavy ’70s rock—into something that feels so assured, inevitable and outrageously enjoyable. From biker-gang stomp of “Do I Wanna Know?” to the bouncing G-funk of “Why’d You Only Call…”, they turn the sounds of their adopted Californian home into a set of can’t-miss instant classics. Seductive, slinky and brimming with nocturnal attitude, AM is the sound of a band locating a sonic sweet spot no one else thought to look for.