Humbug

After a brief hiatus during which Alex Turner toured and recorded with his side project The Last Shadow Puppets, the band recorded a total of 24 songs; 12 in the Rancho De La Luna recording sessions with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age in early autumn, 2008, and 12 in the New York sessions with James Ford in spring, 2009, following their January tour of New Zealand and Australia. During this tour, lead single «Crying Lightning», along with Humbug songs «Pretty Visitors», «Dangerous Animals», and «Potion Approaching» (then known as «Go-Kart»), was debuted live. It was later revealed by Matt Helders in a video diary that the album would consist of 14 tracks and that Alex Turner would stay in New York to oversee the mixing of the material. However, the final tracklisting, revealed on 1 June 2009, listed only 10.

In a preview article on ClashMusic.com, writer Simon Harper claimed that the band had «completely defied any expectations or presumptions to explore the depths they can reach when stepping foot outside their accepted styles,» and that «Turner is his usual eloquent self, but has definitely graduated into an incomparable writer whose themes twist and turn through stories and allegories so potent and profound it actually leaves one breathless». On the same site, Alex Turner revealed that the band had listened to Nick Cave, Jimi Hendrix, and Cream while writing the new album, the title of which would be Humbug.^[44]Humbug was released on 19 August 2009, and, like both of its predecessors, the album went straight to No. 1.

As announced on Arctic Monkeys’ website, the first single was «Crying Lightning», released on 6 July, digitally through iTunes and also received its first radio premiere on the same day. On 12 July 2009, the single «Crying Lightning» debuted at number 12 in the UK Singles Chart and number 1 on the UK Indie Chart. The second single, «Cornerstone», was released on 16 November 2009 to much critical acclaim, but failed to replicate the same success that every prior Arctic Monkeys single had, reaching a peak at position 94 on the UK singles chart. It was announced in February 2010 that the third and final single to be taken from Humbug would be «My Propeller», released on 22 March, shortly before a one off UK show at the Royal Albert Hall in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust on 27 March.

Arctic Monkeys embarked on the first leg of the worldwide Humbug Tour in January 2009 and went on to headline 2009’sReading and Leeds Festivals. During this performance, it played a number of songs from Humbug, plus older tracks and a cover of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ «Red Right Hand». It was also the headline act on the first night of 2009’s Exit festivalin Serbia. In North America, where it has less of a following, it played abridged sets at Montreal’s Osheaga Festival, as well as New Jersey’s All Points West Music and Arts Festival. The tour finished on 22 April 2010 in Mexico.