It’s all happening, folks. Arctic Monkeys have announced their seventh studio album, The Car. The follow-up to 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino will arrive on Friday, 21st October via their longtime home of Domino Recording Company. Pre-orders are available here.
As with all Arctic Monkeys albums from 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare onwards, the band recorded The Car with producer James Ford. It was recorded at Butley Priory in Suffolk (which the venue inadvertently leaked last year), La Frette in Paris, and RAK Studios in London. The cover art – which you can see below – was shot by the band’s drummer, Matt Helders.
Arctic Monkeys’ New Album The Car Will Arrive Friday, 21st October
The new album from Arctic Monkeys, ‘The Car’ is out 21st October. Pre-order now https://t.co/QWACEVpsAr pic.twitter.com/rImMFpEL0b
— Arctic Monkeys (@ArcticMonkeys) August 24, 2022
So, what else do we know about The Car? Earlier this year, Helders said the new record “kind of picks up where [Tranquility Base] left off, musically”. He explained that it’s “never gonna be like ‘R U Mine?’ and all that stuff again… the heavy riffs and stuff,” but also said “there are like riffs in there and [it’s] a bit more up-tempo.” He also explained: “I used to put a lot of focus on it needs be loud and fast and impressive all the time.”
Meanwhile, in his first interview about the record, vocalist and songwriter Alex Turner told the Big Issue that he thinks the band have “got closer to a better version of a more dynamic overall sound” with The Car. “The strings on this record come in and out of focus and that was a deliberate move and hopefully everything has its own space. There’s time the band comes to the front and then the strings come to the front.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Turner said the new record “feel[s] like it’s connected” to the band’s earliest days, when they operated on “pure instinct.” He elaborated: “You have to follow your instincts in the same way you did in the first place. It’s a response I’ve had to other things we’ve composed. This idea of something sounding ‘cinematic’. I never completely subscribe to it, but it’s louder this time.”
Although the band have yet to release any singles from the album, they did debut a new song, ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’, during a festival appearance in Zurich earlier this week. Watch them play that below.
Arctic Monkeys will bring The Car to Australia before the year is out, kicking off a series of festival appearances and their own headline shows. They’ll perform at all three legs of Falls Festival, as well as Lost Paradise and the inaugural edition of Adelaide festival Heaps Good.
They’ll also perform headline shows in January in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. All of those are sold-out except for a second show at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl that’s been announced, which you can grab tickets for here.
Further Reading
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