Weekly News Round-Up: Arctic Monkeys, Johnny Marr and more

You’re in the right place if you’ve missed any of the week’s top news stories – here Live4ever’s Weekly News Round-Up presents a recap of eight of the biggest headlines in British music we featured during the last seven days.

Alex Turner on stage with the Arctic Monkeys (Photo: Todd Howe for Live4ever Media)

Arctic Monkeys will release their sixth studio album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino on May 11th.

It’s their first since 2013’s AM, and judging by the trailer, will keep the groove of that album which helped the band to achieve genuine success in North America for the first time. It was recorded in Los Angeles, Paris and London, produced by Alex Turner and James Ford.

The video for Gaz Coombes‘ latest World’s Strongest Man track Walk The Walk is with us.

The Supergrass frontman’s new solo album is out on May 4th, his successor to Matador, an album which made Live4ever’s end of year retrospective in 2015 as we reflected on a ‘sound dabbled with on the debut solo album here fully realized’.

The Manic Street Preachers have made Liverpool Revisited the final track to be taken from their new album Resistance Is Futile before its release. Nicky Wire has said of the LP: “The title Resistance Is Futile and the cover image just fit together perfectly.”

“The sleeve is a vintage photograph of one of the last samurai warriors; someone who knows his time is over thanks to the coming of the gun.”

Noel Gallagher has released the video for his latest solo single She Taught Me How To Fly.

Taken from last year’s Who Built The Moon? album, it’s premiered with the European leg of his Stranded On The Earth world tour now underway.

Florence & The Machine is one of the latest acts to sign up for the first ever BBC’s Biggest Weekend.

Artists from across the musical spectrum will be performing in all four corners of the UK next month, with Noel and Liam Gallagher, Taylor Swift, Nigel Kennedy, Beck, Young Fathers and Underworld some of those already confirmed.

Johnny Marr at Summer In The City (Photo: Gary Mather for Live4ever)

Johnny Marr has announced his new solo album Call The Comet.

The album is his ‘own magic realism’, and is due for release on June 15th after sessions at his Crazy Face studio in Manchester. “It’s set in the not-too-distant future and is mostly concerned with the idea of an alternative society,” Marr continues.

James will release an EP entitled Better Than That on May 18th.

Its title-track is available now, with more to follow during the build-up on April 18th, May 2nd and May 16th.

We’ve got another new Streets track to enjoy before Mike Skinner opens his greatest hits tour in Berlin.

You Are Not The Voice In Your Head is the latest of several new cuts unveiled since the end of last year, while details of reissues of Original Pirate Material and A Grand Don’t Come For Free have also been planned.

Hookworms have announced more UK dates for later this year.

The band will play Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and London in October and November to help promote their excellent new album Microshift.

It’s hard to believe there’s anymore space left in their diary, but Franz Ferdinand have found room for another run of US dates in support of this year’s Always Ascending album.

Adding to an already busy 2018 are summer dates which start in Raleigh, NC on July 29th and run through to closing gigs in Tennessee in mid-August.