After the all the hype, and the thumbs up from Anton (which still holds more weight that just about any critic out there), I finally bought the Arctic Monkeys debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. The verdict? It's good. I like it a lot. Possibly my favourite new album of 2006 thus far. They have a feel that vaguely reminds of The Strokes, The Libertines and any other combination of neo-classic punk, garage rock, with a touch of post-punk influence as well. That said, while they wear their influences clearly on their sleeves, they don't sound like they are merely aping those other bands or living in the past.

This is music for the moment, and that must be why they sold 118,501 copies of the album in its first day of release in the UK. That's the biggest debut since Oasis incase you're wondering.





















I also bought the DVD of Walk the Line today as well: the 2-disc Collector's Edition. I'm a sucker for the "fancy" editions of DVDs. It's like they say, "This is the collector's edition" and I'm like Mickey Rooney on The Simpsons, saying, I'm a collector!. But I don't feel bad about this one. For one thing it was only $5 more. For another, the art was just a million times better. Also it comes with nifty cards of the various posters for the film, which I had earlier mentioned that I like quite a bit.