Downtown
2007
It's A Bit Complicated
About This Album
From Art Brut's first moments, they've been high-concept -- after all, their debut single was about how they formed, and sounded like they recorded it immediately after getting together -- so it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that they've become increasingly meta, or that It's a Bit Complicated tends to feel like it's based on the concept of what Art Brut's second album should sound like. In the wake of Bang Bang Rock & Roll's success, Eddie Argos and company are no longer underdogs, so the band's sound is bigger, bolder, and more confident. There's more distance in Argos' lyrics -- there are no more stories of how long it's been, to the second, since he's seen the first girl he ever loved, or how his little brother just discovered rock & roll. Instead, there are songs about songs, how moments in life relate to pop songs and several mixtapes' worth of allusions to other, more famous songs (indeed, "Sounds of Summer" is basically a love song to the time-honored tradition of making the perfect mixtape, right down to removing the cassette's recording tabs). Even for Art Brut, getting this conceptually tricky is risky, and there are tradeoffs to this approach.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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