The Last Shadow Puppets, Everything You've Come To Expect, album review: 'An unhurried follow-up that feels experimental'

Download: Aviation, Miracle Aligner, Sweet Dreams TN, Pattern, The Dream Synopsis, The Bourne Identity

(Domino)

You’ll feel a pang of nostalgia while listening to Everything You’ve Come to Expect, the second album from The Last Shadow Puppets, the duo comprised of Arctic Monkeys' suave frontman Alex Turner and his musical chum Miles Kane.

It’s been eight years since the two first donned their suits and it shows. Northern upstarts no more, here they skirt away from Western-imbued galloping riffs towards Seventies soul tinged with sanguine lyrics and prog rock compositions.

If the first album was our heroes marching into battle, this is them drifting into the sunset, cocktail in hand.

But, as with their 2008 debut The Age of the Understatement, this follow-up greets you with the sound of jangly string instruments that build to a dramatic crescendo before unleashing the Kane-heavy "Aviation," a simmering opener best played cruising down an empty sunlight-strewn highway.

“Miracle Aligner” and “The Element of Surprise,” two ballads direct from a past era, soon fall away to “Used to Be My Girl” and “She Does the Woods,” a double bill of altogether moodier tunes whose placement alongside one another evoke the sense it's one epic track. Think Arctic Monkeys' Suck It and See infused with the darker rhythms of Humbug.

If the album meanders its way safely through the first half, it soars with the arrival of grandstanding Turner property “Sweet Dreams, TN." "I ain't got anything to lick without you, baby," he croons accompanied by a marching percussion that's primed to steal festival sets as well as the muscles in your feet.

Capped by album closers “The Dream Synopsis” - in which Turner recounts dreamscapes of a windswept Sheffield and roman colosseums (even Kane gets a namedrop) - and "The Bourne Identity," these songs have shades of vintage Lennon, Bowie and Lou Reed. The former, in particular, feels like a direct continuation of Turner's serene Submarine soundtrack from 2010, both songs helping to soothe the wait for that eventual sixth Arctic Monkeys album.

The Last Shadow Puppets, however, are not relying on nostalgia. Instead, they’ve made a relaxedly unhurried album that feels experimental. While not the instant grab fans may be expecting, this assured follow-up - like all good things in life - improves over time.