After The Noise
Everything Is Equal
Tuesday 24 February 2026
Arctic Monkeys – Body Paint (2022)
There was a time when Arctic Monkeys felt dangerous.
Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino pulled the rug from under everyone, myself included. Lounge pianos, Bowie ghosts, crooner Turner in a lunar hotel bar. It felt deliberate. Risky. Like they’d set fire to 2005 Sheffield and walked away from the smoke.
That’s why it dragged me back in.
Then The Car arrived. Same palette. Strings. Cinematic glide. Mid-tempo cool.
And it’s good. It’s genuinely good.
But it didn’t grab me in the same way.
“Body Paint” builds beautifully. That guitar lift near the end is class. Lush, controlled, refined. But it doesn’t destabilize you the way “Four Out of Five” did. It doesn’t feel like they’re ripping up their own blueprint again.
And once a band proves they can reinvent themselves, you start expecting that every time. Which is probably unfair. But human.
Seeing them in 2007 — Pyramid Stage, youth, velocity — is a different beast to watching the poised, tailored version now. Neither wrong. Just different.
Sometimes an album is just… pleasant enough to get you home through Manchester traffic.
And that’s fine.
Daphni – Lucky (2026)
Speaking of getting home through Manchester traffic.
Daphni pops up. Minimal groove. Circular. Hypnotic. The sort of electronic pulse that doesn’t ask questions or demand nostalgia. It just hums under the chaos while lorries try to take roundabouts not designed for them.
That kind of track is perfect when the world outside is overcompensating.
No big chorus. No emotional spike. Just rhythm doing its thing while you navigate drizzle and roadworks.
Sylvia Plath – Lady Lazarus (1975)
Then out of nowhere — Sylvia Plath. SYLVIA BLOODY PLATH. One of my favourites, if not my absolute favourite writer. Certainly, right up there.
Hearing Plath read her own work is something else entirely. No wobble. No self-pity. Just precision. It’s clipped. Controlled. Quietly furious.
“Dying is an art…”
You don’t dip into that casually. Especially not in February rain. But sometimes that sharpness wakes you up more than caffeine.
Wire – The Commercial (1977)
I bought Pink Flag years after the fuss had faded and never quite knew what to do with it. It felt abrupt. Half-finished. Like someone forgot to add the chorus. Pleasant enough but couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
Now, hearing it in isolation, it makes sense. Slash. State. Exit.
Architectural rather than emotional.
Television shimmer. Wire stab.
The playlist’s randomness helps. No expectation. Just — does this work right now?
Carl Perkins – Boppin’ The Blues (1957)
Simple. Direct. Forward motion. Which is more than can be said for rush hour Manchester after half-term when it rains for eleven minutes and everyone forgets how roundabouts and traffic lights work.
Red lights are supposed to be for stopping.
It’s never just traffic, though, is it?
It’s the printer that won’t behave.
The Wi-Fi betrayal.
The laptop battery draining like it’s on life support.
Three hours gone to tech nonsense.
So, when someone parks half on the road and half in the universe, it feels personal.
It isn’t. But it feels like it. And luckily for me, little gems like this from Carl Perkins, help get me through the day.
And I stay sane.
Shabba Ranks, Patra – Ice Cream Love (1991)
There’s something a little sinister about the title Ice Cream Love. Or is this my over imaginative mind going into overdrive.
Rain on the windscreen.
Roadworks cones breeding like rabbits.
Sat-nav politely suggesting I turn around.
Music is the decompression valve. Always has been. Better to mutter commentary to a dancehall groove than absorb it and boil.
END OF LISTENING LOG
The Listening Log 