The album artwork features a 1962 black and white picture, by photographer Sam Haskins, depicting a young woman, named Gill, sitting on the floor.

The Age of the Understatement is a stylistic deviation from the indie rock sound found in Turner and Kane's previous work with the Arctic Monkeys and The Little Flames, respectively.

Following its release, the album was promoted by the singles "The Age of the Understatement", "Standing Next to Me" and "My Mistakes Were Made for You", as well as a European and North American tour and multiple television appearances.

Turner and Kane first collaborated musically on the song 505, of Arctic Monkeys second album Favourite Worst Nightmare and on "Fluorescent Adolescent" B-sides "The Bakery" and "Plastic Tramp."

The band lived in the studio while recording, in their free time Turner and Kane would ride their bikes through the countryside,[6] watch The Pink Panther film series, and have dance parties.

[8] During the recording of the album Turner and Kane hired a documentary film-making team, Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull, to capture the story of the project.

[20] The album has been compared to the works of John Barry, Ennio Morricone,[21] the Zombies, Love, Scott Walker,[16][22] Burt Bacharach,[23] and the James Bond soundtracks,[21][22] as well as contemporary artists like Pulp and Belle and Sebastian.

[16] The duo claimed the album was influenced by the music of Walker, Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson, The Electric Prunes' Mass in F Minor, and Morricone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly soundtrack.

[26] The photograph was chosen by Alex Turner, after he saw it in a copy of Haskins' book found by Alexa Chung, his girlfriend at the time, in Dover Street Market.

[31] Their first show in the United Kingdom was a short two song set on 5 April at the Lock Tavern in Camden, London, where they played "Meeting Place" and "Standing Next to Me".

The video was shot mainly in Moscow, Russia, and features the band walking down the city, tanks, a girl ice skating, an Orthodox church, and a military choir.

The video, shot in London, featured the band performing the song in what resembles to be a television studio accompanied by a group of dancers wearing colored leggings.

[38][39] Their third and last single, "My Mistakes Were Made for You", was released on 20 October 2008, and it included live covers of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's "Paris Summer", featuring Alison Mosshart, and Burt Bacharach's "My Little Red Book" as b-sides.

[49][50][51] The band performed on a number of television shows including Later with Jools Holland, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and Canal +'s Concert Privé.

[57] Marc Hogan of Pitchfork gave the album a favorable review, stating, "The biggest difference between The Last Shadow Puppets and Turner's main gig is in the lyrics.

Hogan continues, calling the album "Turner's most impressive album-length statement yet, one that strives, musically and lyrically, for the epic grandeur of an era before GarageBand or MySpace, and avoids lapsing into pretentiousness by dint of its own headlong enthusiasm.

"[17] On the difference between Turner's projects, Mikael Wood of Spin, thought the album replaced "the Arctic Monkeys’ circa-now cynicism with old-school romance".

"[66] On another favorable review, Alex Denney of Drowned In Sound, said the album represented, "The most ambitious music either musician has assailed" and added "The Age Of The Understatement is as solid an idea in execution as it is in concept; a record unafraid to reach beyond its obvious limitations and produce a swashbuckling end result that might even broaden a few horizons for fans and players alike."

[68] For the same publication, Alexis Petridis, was less complimentary, pointing out that some tracks ambled down a "drearily well-trodden path" while also praising Turner's lyrics, noting his usual "witty-but-prosaic" writing, turned into something more opaque, but without "sacrificing sharpness".

[69] Bud Scoppa of Paste, noted that the album would not got over that well with Arctic Monkeys fans, but praised Turner, "for unleashing his inner Bowie and embracing artifice with such nerve and verve.