Everything You've Come to Expect

Everything You've Come to Expect is the second studio album by English supergroup the Last Shadow Puppets, released on 1 April 2016 by Domino Recording Company.

Production was done in Malibu by fellow member James Ford, alongside guest musician Matt Helders, new bass player, Zach Dawes and featuring once again string arrangements by Owen Pallett.

The album artwork features a photo of singer Tina Turner dancing, as photographed by Jack Robinson Jr. in November 1969; the original picture was modified by illustrator Matthew Cooper, who gave it a gold tint.

Everything You've Come to Expect became the Last Shadow Puppets' second and Turner’s seventh consecutive number-one debut in the UK, also topping the charts in Belgium.

[1] Since then, Turner had released three albums with Arctic Monkeys, Humbug (2009), Suck It and See (2011), and AM (2013), as well as composing the acoustic soundtrack for the feature film Submarine (2010).

[6][7][8] The album was written on acoustic guitar and on a Vox Continental keyboard,[9] between Kane's apartments in London,[10] Paris and Los Angeles.

[9][17][18] Turner recalled the sessions, felt like "a holiday" similarly to the ones for the first album, Pallett agreed and thought they were more "like hanging out with mates than work".

[20] It has been compared to the works of Jean-Claude Vannier, Serge Gainsbourg, Isaac Hayes,[24] the Replacements, Queens of the Stone Age[25] and its lead singer Josh Homme,[21] Lou Reed[26] and Scott Walker.

[35][36] Being mainly "about the shenanigans young rock stars get up to in LA; lust figures often",[37] it was described as "a west coast film noir fever dream, scored by Ennio Morricone, with Kane and Turner the doomed protagonists".

[22] The lyrics are a departure from The Age of the Understatement and have been compared to the ones in other works by Turner, such as the "insecurity" found in Submarine and "metaphors straight from Arctic Monkeys' fourth album Suck It and See".

Turner wanted to use the word "Colorama" in a song since the first time he saw Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966), he described it as, "an unplugged neon light at the back of my mind for years",[39] about the line he added, "It doesn't make a ton of sense, but that's not really the point.

[40] "The Element of Surprise" has been called a ballad "direct from a past era"[26] that finds producer James Ford "steering closer to his dance music origins",[46] soft-rock[25] and a funk track "that sounds like the Rat Pack performing inside George Clinton's Holy Mothership".

[23] "Bad Habits" has been described as a "sinister punk mariachi groover"[22] driven by "Pallet’s violins",[46] with "Iggy Pop-like intensity".

[48] The track is a love song for his at the time girlfriend, Taylor Bagley,[9] and the most direct piece of writing in the record, "That tune actually is perhaps the only one where i sat down and it is just what it is, That's straightforward that", Turner has said.

[21] Both closers have had its sound compared to "vintage Lennon, Bowie and Lou Reed" with "The Bourne Identity" further feeling "like a direct continuation of Turner's serene Submarine".

[26] The art for Everything You've Come to Expect consists of a photo of singer Tina Turner dancing, as photographed by Jack Robinson in November 1969 in New York City.

[55] Illustrator Matthew Cooper modified the original image and gave it a gold tint "to create an identifiable colour scheme and a warmer, more contemporary feel".

[58] He also thought the string arrangements made the project inherently "sophisticated and elegant", which reflected in the title in "an amusing way", comparing it to a cognac advertisement.

The video also features Ford, an orchestral theme sounds throughout, and ends with a title card announcing the band would be back in the Summer of 2016.

[64] The album's lead single, "Bad Habits", was released on 10 January 2016, alongside a music video directed by Ben Chapell.

[67] The next three singles, the title track, "Aviation" and "Miracle Aligner" were released as a video trilogy entitled, "The Italian Saga", directed by Saam Farahmand.

[88] The band also headlined several music festivals, including Coachella, Radio 1's Big Weekend, Primavera Sound, Rockwave, T in the Park and Lollapalooza in Chicago.

[26] Philip Cosores of Consequence said "the album is never tortuous or boring" and felt its quality was on par with the band members' principal works, as they all devoted themselves to the record.

[25] Laura Snapes, on her Pitchfork review, described the first five tracks as "totally gorgeous, the strings glassy, the tone all understated seduction, the structures fluid and surprising", adding, "It's the perfect music for the Daniel Craig-era James Bond films: sophisticated, tortured—and with a weakness for temptation".

[21] Matt Collar of AllMusic praised the bands songwriting, "they make writing catchy, literate songs sound easy", and said the lyrics were "wedded to their echo-chamber-laden arrangements and sneering Bowie-esque croons", describing Turner and Kane, as "debonair lounge lizards, [...] with talent and charisma to spare".

[22] Barry Nicholson of NME noted that Turner and Kane, were no longer as musically naive as they were in their first record, with their partnership continuing, "to provoke intriguing responses from each other".

[44] On the lyrics, Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph found "Bright character studies of predatory women, manipulative gurus, sleazy lotharios and outdoor sex fiends are peppered with non-sequiturs that force listeners to fill in gaps".

[109] Writing for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis, thought Everything You've Come to Expect was less musically focused than their first record, but also, "less inclined to lapse into straightforward pastiche".

[24] For the same publication, Emma Mackay, was even more negative, "Their second album fulfils the premise of its title with more ravishing arrangements by Owen Pallett, while leaning less on the Scott Walker/Morricone stylings that gave their 2008 debut a whiff of pastiche", although she was more warm towards Turner's lyrics, describing them as "nuanced"; she ended up the review by saying "even the best tracks —Miracle Aligner, Dracula Teeth— are just Monkeys offcuts in orchestral pop clothing".

[120] In the two months following its release, Everything You've Come to Expect was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry, while it received gold certification well over a year later on 15 December 2017.