But this is the Arctic Monkeys like you’ve never heard them before. The band have wilfully pivoted through each era, from scrappy upstarts on their early records, to desert dudes on ‘Humbug’, through to rock gods on ‘AM’ in 2013. “Giant leap”? Fuck, we can barely see them from here. Arctic Monkeys’ sixth album, whose name is inspired by that landing spot, is not quite as towering an achievement as putting a man on the moon – but consider this the band’s boldest step yet. You know the rest: they planted a flag, bounced around a little and Armstrong gave that quote about a making a “giant leap for mankind”. The journey had started four days earlier in Florida, and culminated with the two astronauts landing at a prearranged site Armstrong named ‘Tranquility Base’. In July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.
