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Album review: The Last Shadow Puppets

By Glenn Gamboa Newsday

The Last Shadow Puppets

The Age of the Understatement

The Last Shadow Puppets — the side project from Arctic Monkeys singer Alex Turner and Miles Kane, singer from the British, new-millennium version of the Rascals — move at two speeds on their debut, The Age of the Understatement.

There's the spaghetti-Western gallop, with touches of Ennio Morricone drama stretched over Britpop guitars, and there's the Bond movie march, a seeming soundtrack for tuxedoed spies everywhere to enter a room with equal parts swagger and wariness.

Luckily, they handle both scenarios masterfully.

Turner's vocals aren't really any more emotive than they are with the Arctic Monkeys, but when they're dropped into all these unusual surroundings, they just seem that way. On the title track, already a chart-topper in England, the Last Shadow Puppets sound as if they're scoring a '60s Western. On the lush Meeting Place, it sounds as if Turner's joined the Style Council, with the help of the 22-piece London Metropolitan Orchestra.

The Age of the Understatement may be a bit weird, but it's certainly worth a visit.