Alex Turner with Dev Hynes for a one-off show in London and recorded a spoken word track "A Choice of Three" for Helders' compilation album "". Turner has described Arctic Monkeys' third album, "Humbug", released in August 2009, as "a massive turning point" in the band's career. They travelled to Joshua Tree, California to work with producer Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, and explored a heavier sound. While Petridis of "The Guardian" found some lyrics "too oblique to connect", he was impressed by the band's "desire to progress". He described "Cornerstone" as a "dazzling display of what Turner can
Humbug (album) exception of the album's singles, which were handled by session and touring keyboardist John Ashton. The presence of new percussion instruments was also evident, as the band used xylophones, glockenspiels and shakers. Early soundbites of tracks from the album appeared in the band's periodical video diary on YouTube. While being interviewed for the BBC's "The Culture Show", Turner and Matt Helders cited Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Jake Thackray, John Cale, Nick Cave, Roky Erickson and The Beatles as influences on the recording of the album. The first single of the album was "Crying Lightning". It was released on 6 July, when