The Last Shadow Puppets

The Arc of The Last Shadow Puppets

The pivots — what forced The Last Shadow Puppets to reinvent.

1. 01

   Scott Walker Cosplay in the Loire Valley

   Turner and Kane escaped the UK spotlight in late 2007 by decamping to France with producer James Ford handling both the desk and the drum kit. The resulting 2008 debut, The Age Of The Understatement, swapped gritty northern guitar riffs for sweeping spaghetti-western drama and Owen Pallett's frantic string charts. Tracks like 'Standing Next to Me' and 'My Mistakes Were Made for You' proved their obsessive record-nerd appetite for sixties melodrama was dead serious. It hit number one out of the gate, picked up a Mercury nomination, and set an impossibly high bar for side projects.

2. 02

   The Malibu Seduction

   After nearly eight years away running Arctic Monkeys and solo tours, the duo reconvened at Shangri-La studios in Malibu with Ford and new recruit Zachary Dawes of Mini Mansions on bass. The 2016 follow-up, Everything You’ve Come to Expect, ditched the teenage kitchen-sink intensity for a sleeker, sun-drenched cocktail of orchestral soul and psych-funk. Turner's delivery traded pure adrenaline for a drawn-out, swaggering croon on tracks like 'Aviation' and the feverish single 'Bad Habits'. It brought another UK chart-topper, trading romanticized British angst for Hollywood sheen.

3. 03

   The Shangri-La Hangover

   Rather than milking the album cycle into a stadium victory lap, they closed out 2016 by stripping down to brass tacks. Dropping The Dream Synopsis EP that December, they cut live-in-the-studio takes at Future-Past Studios along with offbeat covers of Leonard Cohen and The Fall. It captured the duo at their loosest and most unpolished, free of the massive orchestral staging. They promptly shelved the act again right after, slipping back into indefinite cold storage while Turner carried the newfound crooner shtick straight into his main gig.

Influences

• Scott Walker — Turner and Kane cited Walker's solo run—specifically Walker 1 through 4—as the prime catalyst for cutting their debut. You hear it across every sweeping string hit and brooding vocal inflection on 'The Age of the Understatement'. He gave them permission to abandon garage rock for total orchestral melodrama.
• Ennio Morricone — The duo explicitly wanted spaghetti-western tension behind their drum beats, handing Owen Pallett Morricone scores as arrangements homework. You can trace that cinematic, dry acoustic strumming and galloping brass directly through 'Calm Like You'. It turns cheap romantic friction into a panoramic shoot-out.
• David Bowie — Bowie's theatrical, mid-seventies swagger provided the blueprint for their entire dual-frontman stage persona and lounge-heavy vocal delivery. They even committed their obsession to tape by regularly covering 'In the Heat of the Morning' during their 2008 tour dates. His DNA is all over the theatrical vocal layering on 'My Mistakes Were Made for You'.
• The Fall — Mark E. Smith's abrasive post-punk sneer served as the deliberate counterweight to their polished, tailored aesthetic. They proved the connection directly by covering 'Totally Wired' on their 2016 EP The Dream Synopsis. That barbed, aggressive push-and-pull keeps tracks like 'Bad Habits' from turning into soft-shoe parody.
• Leonard Cohen — Cohen's cynical, smoky delivery was a massive influence on the duo's later, lower-register vocal arrangements. They paid explicit tribute by recording 'Is This What You Wanted' as the centerpiece cover on The Dream Synopsis. You can hear that dry, lounge-room weariness creeping into every slow-burning verse on Everything You've Come to Expect.