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Arctic Monkeys

Rachel Cranshaw 07/10/2005

It is rare for a band to make a break in the music industry as suddenly as Arctic Monkeys have. Four young, average-looking northern lads have shot from getting guitars for Christmas and having a casual strum together to being The Most Talked About Band In Britain. They are exactly the right age to justifiably be a band with a sound influenced by The Libertines-and this is by no means a negative comparison. Arctic Monkeys have many of the elements that made The Libertines such a powerful and inspiring band: a vast, devoted fanbase, a grip on reality, and most of all, a set of tunes catchier than a flu epidemic at the Barfly on a Friday night. The fundamental difference between the bands being that the Monkeys sing of everyday Burberry hats, having your bird pinched, and drunken nights out as opposed to Arcadian fairytales!