The return of Arctic Monkeys
The Sheffield band are back — and creating divisive music once again. Many hardcore fans, however, seem to have more love than hate for it
The release of a new track last week ended a four year wait for fresh Arctic Monkeys music. Not since Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino have the band from Sheffield given us new tunes, and it’s fair to say it felt like it was long overdue.
‘There’d better be a Mirrorball’ is the first taste of the band’s seventh studio album, and the early indication seems to be that the Monkeys may be moving forward in the same direction as TBHC.
The new track is tinted with the same, melodic vibes as many of the tracks on TBHC. so much so that it could be regarded as an extension of the 2018 record.
However, it is part of a separate entity — an entity we now know will be an album called ‘The Car’.
We’ve even already got a full track list, which will no doubt keep fans guessing as to the type of song we may hear.
This track list is as follows…
There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am, Sculptures of Anything Goes, Jet Skis on the Moat, Body Paint, The Car, Big Ideas, Hello You, Mr Schwartz, Perfect Sense.
So it seems like the first taste of the album will be the opening track, and some fans at festivals this summer have been given a taste of ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’ which is set to be the second track.
What’s even better is AM have provided a release date for ‘The Car’, and the album will park up in our lives on 21 October.
The return of Arctic Monkeys is a timely relief, but it’s something which not all fans seem to keen on — at least now that they have a better idea of what kind of music we’re in for next month.
The fear is that the new album won’t sound like the band’s fifth album ‘AM’ but the fact of the matter is it shouldn’t.
‘AM’ was released in 2013, very nearly a decade ago. If a band’s sound doesn’t grow and change in nine years then fans should really be concerned.
The fact that so many want the band to go back to that album feels like a step back, especially considering the direction they went in with TBHC.
For me, TBHC was a slow burner. The first few listens were hard to get my head around. But it grew on me, it was different to AM and all previous albums and it wasn’t a classic Monkeys sound — but that’s alright by me.
The countdown to ‘The Car’ is on and will be over before we know it. Whatever the album brings, we can be assured that it will be another interesting walk through music — and one that will no doubt split the opinions of fans in a not too dissimilar way to TBHC.
