Review Summary: I'm behind my movie camera, I've got my megaphone
A word thrown around a lot in the run-up to the release of
The Car was 'grounded'. It's an easy word to grasp, I suppose, especially in relation to the spacey sci-fi wanderings of
Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino,
The Car ostensibly being its down-to-earth, even-keeled counterpart. Even the austere, desolate album cover of
The Car – shot by drummer Matt Helders on a film camera in Los Angeles, in stark contrast to
Tranquility Base's handmade design - screams that this album is a serious anchoring of its predecessor's wilder impulses.
And yet:
The Car makes
Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino sound like an easy ride. That album's departure from the
AM sound, so delightfully unexpected in 2018, sounds a little rote after "Sculptures of Anything Goes" kicks off with a menacing trip-hop drone that's so far afield of anything Arctic Monkeys have done you can't help but laugh.
The Car continues to surprise from there, with a second-half switchup to guitars and a stadium hook in "Body Paint" ranking among the band's finest moments, and a welcome folky tint to "The Car" and "Mr Schwartz" which feels as if Alex Turner has been consulting Nick Drake's
Bryter Layter. The Bond-esque ballad "Big Ideas" even feels like a cheeky nod to Radiohead's aspirations to the same title, with a self-reflective tint that would be funny if it wasn't so heartbreaking; lines like "the orchestra's got us all surrounded / and I cannot for the life of me remember how they go" providing plenty of fodder for the people who still believe Turner has his bandmates at gunpoint, forcing them to play lounge music instead of making another
Favourite Worst Nightmare.
Appropriately, the lyrics are less idiosyncratically quotable than last time around – no "I just wanted to be one of The Strokes" here – but more deeply felt, a continuation of the more personal tone struck on the sadly overlooked b-side "Anyways". Maybe that's the source of the 'grounded' descriptor that otherwise doesn't really apply to
The Car. Then again, the album as a whole feels more like a full-band effort, the product of the four fellas jamming out in a room, as opposed to
Tranquility Base's lingering feeling of Turner demos being reworked and overdubbed. Arctic Monkeys' chemistry as a unit has always been their strongest asset, whether they're playing spacey lounge pop or rollicking indie bangers, and it's nice to hear that energy come through more even on a grab bag of styles which sacrifices some of the cohesion that made its predecessor work. Some experiments just don't work, in the case of the limp funk snoozer "Jet Skis on the Moat" or underwhelming closer "Perfect Sense", but
The Car is crackling with a wickedly fun energy underneath the surface of its mid-tempo mugging, if you're willing to take the commute and meet it halfway.
