The Age of the Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets

The Age of the Understatement, the debut from The Last Shadow Puppets, came out on Domino on 15 April 2008, and it's the sound of two young men from the indie guitar world reaching for the strings. Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane of The Little Flames had become mates when Kane's band supported the Monkeys on a 2005 tour, bonded over Scott Walker and David Bowie, and wrote these songs together in 2006. James Ford produced in Paris and London, and Owen Pallett wrote the orchestral arrangements for the London Metropolitan Orchestra.

The result swaps indie rock for widescreen baroque pop, galloping and dramatic, cribbing from French pop and '60s film scores. It went to number one in the UK, picked up a Mercury Prize nomination, and sent "The Age of the Understatement", "Standing Next to Me" and "My Mistakes Were Made for You" out as singles. Even the sleeve looks the part: a 1962 Sam Haskins photograph of a young woman sitting on the floor.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.