Arctic Monkeys - The Car

Album Review

Oct 25

Arctic Monkeys

The Car

Ultimately, The Car is not as immediate or instantly gratifying as driving 100m/hr with the windows down - but the experience of the less traveled road is richer, and deeper, giving you time to reflect and appreciate.

We’re beyond calling The Car a right turn for the Arctic Monkeys.

This is a full-on commitment, a doubling down, an extra emphatic shove away from the arena rock from albums previous and an arms wide open, ‘this is who we are.’

The Car’s precursor, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino was a surprising and campy schmooze, a smoke-filled lounge album after a full five years of literal silence from the band. It reeked of ambivalence, not decidedly having a purpose or deciding to execute this bizarre decision. Needless to say, its decisions were wrong.

But with The Car, The Arctic Monkeys refined the album and sound they were trying to make. This is full-speed ahead.

And while AM is the straightaway on the highway, pushing the muscle car into high gear - The Car is the scenic drive that takes more time.

Ultimately, it’s not as immediate or instantly gratifying as driving 100m/hr with the windows down - but the experience of the less traveled path is richer, and deeper, giving you time to reflect and appreciate.

The underbelly of The Car is still very much a rock album, but muted, with a lack of cymbals on the drums and an absence of standard rock structure. Strings fill the air, both in ways that are alarmingly harsh at times, and beautifully understated at others.

Songs like “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am” are very much rock n’ roll, just shifted downstream. You could easily imagine distorting the guitars and turning the tempo upwards slightly and hearing it become a gigantic rock anthem.

But that’s not the Arctic Monkeys anymore - and that is not a bad thing. The band has been vague, if not completely uncertain, about why or how this path came to be, or if it's even a one-way street.

However, The Car isn’t a documentary on the musical trajectory the band has taken. Any experience absorbing art while being stuck looking backward at the artist's past is only robbing you of the beauty staring you right in the face.

And that is what The Car is at its core, a piece of art worth contemplating, enjoying, and being in the moment with.

Sonically, The Car sounds both forward-thinking and nodding its playful head toward the past. There are gloriously lush handfuls of incredible atmosphere, mixed with haunting, almost uncomfortable moments like on “Sculptures of Anything Goes.”

The soundscapes embrace a wide array of genres, from disco to rock to lounge, clinging neatly to Alex Turner’s reflective lyrics on heartbreak, love, and doubt. His delivery is highly cinematic and grandiose, avoiding the cheesy ooze found on Casino, and instead focusing more on falsetto ranges and soaring garnish.

On “Big Ideas”, there’s no more direct lyricism that outlines the path from AM to The Car and the pressure of the world demanding a rockstar. Ironically, the track only teases the past world of Arctic rock with a tantalizing guitar outro.

Meanwhile, there are certainly missteps, and the albums singles, “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball” and “Body Paint” are among the most directionless and aimless.

Still, there is a precision a la The Dirty Projectors David Longstreth or the intricate work of Daniel Rossen on his solo records and with Grizzly Bear throughout the album, with a heavy intention behind each note.

But Alex Turner has created something much bigger and better than a precise and forward-thinking record. The arrangements across the board are sickeningly ambitious, executed with a dedication to the wider picture.

A big question might be, like our Brandon Sims asked, ‘how did Alex Turner convince the rest of the band to make this giant transition?’ That’s because The Car very much feels like a solo work: Alex Turner and the Arctic Monkeys.

With any experience, art, or otherwise, false expectations can ruin your chance at a good time. Heading to a party you think will be massive, only to find out that just a few people showed up can shake your mind’s hope of a memorable time.

And walking to The Car expecting straightforward rock that the band made almost 10 years ago is equally a mistake. We don’t need that album again.

It’s easy to look through the lens that the Arctic Monkeys were the biggest rock band on Earth in 2013, with the best Rock Album - but AM was simply another ripple in a long river of music from the group.

It was a culmination of several previous, punky/rock albums that slowly built up their story. And their story didn’t climax with AM and it won’t end with The Car. Impressively, Turner and the band are constantly evolving and growing and striving for their specific place in music history.

And if history has shown us anything, it’s that taking creative musical risks is difficult in the short term but hugely celebrated in the long term. However, with The Car, we won’t have to wait to celebrate the music, it’s good now.