The world is waiting with baited breath for the new album from Arctic Monkeys, one of the biggest bands of their generation, to drop this Friday. But what does Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino actually sound like?

So far, our only lead is some patchy fanshot footage of the new songs performed live, which along with the little info that’s out there, indicates album #6 is not going to repeat the style of its predecessor, 2013’s AM. In fact, they’ve explicitly said it’s “definitely not a guitar-heavy record.” It was nearly an Alex Turner solo album, written mostly on piano with an autobiographical lean, complete with an opening lyrical nod to one of Turners’ formative favourites, The Strokes.

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The band are bucking the trend of releasing singles ahead of the album’s release, so aside from what’s turned up on tour so far and this teaser, nobody’s heard Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino in full...

Nobody that is except triple j’s Richard Kingsmill and Linda Marigliano.

The Group Music Director and Mornings presenter have heard the album, all the way through. Here’s part of what the music news team overheard once they took the headphones off after their first listen…

RK: Wow – wasn’t expecting that! I feel like I’ve been sprayed with velvet. What did you think?

LM: I cannot help but picture Alex as a Hollywood ghoul, smoking cigs and playing piano in a hotel lobby. I actually really like how drastically different it is from AM. You?

RK: It’s so different. I kept waiting for those big AM choruses, but this is real train-of-thought stuff. He’s never been short of words before, but this is verbal gymnastics! What do you think fans will make of it?

LM: Umm, I’m not sure! I feel like you really need to let yourself sink into the world of it. There are stories; it’s also really cheeky. But it’s not this Bang Bang Bang pop song album. How did you like him on piano versus guitar?

RK: The only time I was really thinking about that was picturing them playing this live. I just kept seeing Alex standing out front, without guitar, wearing dark glasses and a maroon smoking jacket, holding a big brandy glass in one hand, and the mic in the other. Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not. That could have been the title of this album!



Jealous? Wait’ll you cop this. Linda also got to sit down with chief Monkey Alex Turner in Los Angeles for an interview. The full chat’s still coming but here’s some key stuff we learned.

Alex Turner built and designed the model on the cover of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, which he imagines as a musical world listeners can escape to.

“I liked the idea that the record would have the name of a place because records and songs that I love, when you really fall in love with it, it does seem like a place you go. You can keep going back there and sometimes, you move in for a while.”

The piano plays a significant role on the album, essentially helping Turner overcome writer’s block

“I don’t know what I would have done without it, really. I had no ideas and through that, suddenly started to have ideas. I just knew everything I was about to do when I pick up a guitar. So, you change that… [The piano] brought out this character. I think the lyrics I came up with were different as a result of the chords me fingers had fallen on.”

Expect songs that are wordier and broader in subject matter than anything before

“I honestly don’t know how we would’ve done something like AM again. The type of lyrics on AM, there’s no more ways I could say that anymore. I think any time I’d tried to go to some of these [different] places in the past, the poetry just wasn’t there for me.

“This time I think I managed to find it. The battle between the future and the past, it’s just there innit? It’s all there. Thinking about it, I don’t know how we would’ve done anything other than this.”

Tranqulity Base Hotel & Casino is out Friday 11 May. To celebrate, Arctic Monkeys are opening up a Sydney pop-up store on the day of release at Golden Age Cinema & Bar, where the band have programmed films across the weekend. More info and ticket details here.