If rock ‘n’ roll is a religion, then Britain’s New Musical Express magazine is positioned as a high priest. Chief among its duties is to announce the coming of the next messiah, which arrive once or twice a decade to save us all from pop dreck. From time to time, the magazine has correctly identified its marks (the Smiths in the early 1980s, the Stone Roses in the late ’80s, Blur and Oasis in the 1990s), but agnostics counter with a “chicken and egg” argument against Britain’s most notorious tastemaker. What comes first: the band or the hype?

The Arctic Monkeys are four teenagers from working-class Sheffield with a devotion to post-punk guitars and beer — and possessing the kind of insouciance required to name themselves the Arctic Monkeys. When they sold 350,000 copies of their 2005 debut, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,” religious debate was inevitable. However promising the album was — however tight and jagged the riffs, however articulate the lyrics, however powerful the hooks — it must have been a product of the NME saint-making machine, right? The magazine actually called the Monkeys’ debut record one of the five greatest British albums ever, which probably put it ahead of such documents as, oh, “The White Album” by the Beatles.

The reaction on these shores was much tamer (and they say it’s Western Europe that’s going secular). These young Brits were good, sure, but those riffs sounded a bit too much like those of obvious forebears the Clash, the Strokes, and the Libertines (former messiahs all). The melodies, though catchy and startlingly mature, paled in comparison with those found on the better works of the same influences. As for the lyrics, which related stories of grim nightclub bouncers and confused teenage girls, there was a remarkable level of eloquence and fluidity brimming from the 19-year-old mind of lead singer Alex Turner. It was a very good record, and maybe the first step to the making of a great record.

So what do messiahs do for an encore, when the element of surprise is gone and the intervening year has been booked up with performances, interviews, promotional appearances, more performances, and plenty of well-deserved reveling? They make basically the same record. Which is not a bad thing. It’s hard enough to make one good album before age 21.

Depending on whom you ask, “Favourite Worst Nightmare” is either the confirmation that the Arctic Monkeys will save rock ‘n’ roll or that they were never so great to begin with. Mr. Turner, who does most of the band’s writing, has an undeniable gift for attaching a story to the back of a speeding line of his guitar, and the songs — with one or two exceptions — more or less adhere to the same formula. Take a turn through the record and you may notice a building-block approach to the songwriting, almost as if parts are interchangeable. The bridge to “Old Yellow Bricks” could be pasted onto the verses for “D is for Dangerous,” which would probably go well with the chorus to “The Bad Thing.”

But this isn’t songwriting by numbers. The Arctic Monkeys consistently spice their tunes with aggressive bursts of rhythmic changeover and startling craftsmanship, taking a song from Point A to Point C and bringing it back with a smooth landing. Indeed, for a group of musicians who will be allowed into the bars in America for the first time on their upcoming tour, the musicianship on “Favourite Worst Nightmare” is preternatural. Give some of that credit to producers James Ford and Mike Crossey, who imbue the Monkeys with a clean, unfussy sonic tone, but really it’s a testament to how talented these lads truly are. Remarkably, they’ve toned down the general rowdiness of their debut in favor of more musical flourishes and sonic simplicity, suggesting a developing maturity and the recognition of a career in the making and not just a party.

Lead single “Brainstorm” kicks off the 12-song, 38-minute set with a flurry of wild notes and drums that segues into a sleek, propulsive two-guitar lick. The following song, “Teddy Picker,” focuses a keen listener’s attention on the group’s fine rhythm section, which lays a unyielding foundation — heard amply in Nick O’Malley’s growling bass lines and Matt Helders’s pinpoint precision on the drums. There are bands that have spent 30 years trying to attain the sheer tightness that these boys seem to rip off as easily as a bottle cap.

Of course that’s not all they might be accused of ripping off. Even on more adventuresome songs, like the plaintive “Only Ones Who Know” and the meandering, reverberative “Do Me a Favour,” echoes of English heroes like the Smiths and the Cure are unmistakable — though they also point to the Monkeys’ eagerness and ability to take their music into more refined territory.

And the star is Mr. Turner. A seeming hybrid of Johnny Rotten and Serge Gainsbourg, the Monkeys’ main man seems to see the world through the eyes of a man twice his age — though he’s clearly looking at the world of a 21-year-old rock star. With only a year to write a new batch of songs, as opposed to the lifetime he had to write the songs on the Monkeys’ debut album, Mr. Turner has wisely resisted the urge to write about award shows and plastic record executives and stuck to what he knows: regular people — Sheffield folk. His tales of would-be debutantes and “dirty little herberts” don’t just paint sympathetic portraits, but turn phrases with a verbal dexterity we’re used to hearing on Elvis Costello records. On the lovely “Fluorescent Adolescent,” which rides along on a Specials-inspired guitar beat, Mr. Turner admonishes a life gone down the wrong road in search of love: “You used to get it in your fishnets / now you only get it in your night dress / discarded all your naughty nights for niceness / landed in a very common crisis / Everything is harder in a black hole / nothing seems a pity like the past, though / that bloody mary’s lacking in Tabasco / Remember when you used to be a rascal?”

Mr. Turner’s scruffy larynx and languorous delivery conjure a lounge singer as much as they do a rock wailer; you can almost picture one arm resting on the microphone stand and the other clutching a glass of Scotch as he loosens his bowtie and unfolds his yarns.

The Arctic Monkeys are the complete package. If the songs on “Favourite Worst Nightmare” don’t always sound musically diverse, the group’s precision, craftsmanship, and devotion to composing sturdy rock songs nevertheless portend many years of exciting music. Are they rock gods? Time — not NME — will tell.