Arctic Monkeys share new track ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’
This Friday, Arctic Monkeys will release their seventh studio album, The Car. Picking up where their previous album, 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, left off, The Car is filled with throwback synths, sultry disco beats, and quasi-lounge music buzz.
After hearing the Monkeys share their take on a dark James Bond theme with ‘There’d Better Be a Mirrorball’ and their quasi-Beatlesesque romp on ‘Body Paint’, today we’re getting a new single in the form of the stomping funk rocker, ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’.
The word has been out for many a year, but it’s true: Arctic Monkeys have fully forsaken guitars. That’s not altogether a bad thing, considering how the band kind of shuffled their feet for a few years around the Humbug/Suck It and See era when they didn’t know how to transcend their old garage rock sound. Tranquillity was at least something new, but The Car isn’t quite giving off that new car smell, rehashing what Tranquility already put out years ago.
‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’ is certainly a step closer to the rock side of music, with Matt Helders and Nick O’Malley holding down the groove with a solid sense of rhythm. As Alex Turner unfurls a guitar line right out of Shaft, ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’ certainly stands above as the easiest to enjoy of all the band’s most recent singles. That doesn’t elevate it above anything more than pastiche, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.
Will Arctic Monkeys be able to rise above the cliches on The Car? You’ll just have to find out on Friday. I’ve heard the album already, so I have my opinion, but I’m not writing up that review, so I’ll just keep my thoughts to myself for now. All I’ll say is that ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’ is definitely one of my favourites from the new LP, and I’m only giving it a medium grade, so extrapolate from that what you will.
Check out the video for ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’ down below.
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