Arctic Monkeys have released their first single in four years, ‘There’d Better Be a Mirrorball’.
Alex Turner and co released the lead track from their forthcoming seventh studio album ‘The Car’ on Tuesday (30.08.22).
The piano-led heartbreak epic comes in at just under four and a half minutes long and sees the frontman sing about a breakup.
He croons: “You’re getting cynical and that won’t do.
“I’d throw the rose tint back on the exploded view. Darling, if I were you.”
The tune – which comes a retro-styled music video directed by Alex – is the first since the band’s 2018 LP ‘Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino’.
The ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ group will release ‘The Car’ on October 21, and frontman Alex teased the record will bring the group “back to earth” following the intergalactic sound of their last album.
Alex told The Big Issue: “I think we’ve got closer to a better version of a more dynamic overall sound with this record.
“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.”
The record was made with their regular producer James Ford and recorded at Butley Priory, a converted monastery in rural Suffolk.
Alex – who is joined in the band by Jamie Cook, Nick O’Malley and Matt Helders – explained that the decision to snub a typical recording studio was inspired by legends of rock ‘n’ roll.
The 36-year-old musician said: “There’s a bunch of Led Zeppelin and Stones records where they were in this house in the country and then they went and sorted it all out and overdubbed it elsewhere.
“We went there in the summer, took all the equipment, got the raw material and then took it on elsewhere.”
The release of ‘The Car’ comes 20 years after Arctic Monkeys were formed in Sheffield and Alex wants the group to stay true to their roots.
He said: “You have to follow your instincts in the same way you did in the first place. In that way, it does all feel like it’s connected to us 20 years ago in the garage when it was pure instinct.”
‘The Car’ track-listing:
‘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’