Review: Arctic Monkeys - The Car
Arctic Monkeys
The Car
The Name’s Turner, Alex Turner
★★★★
The Car is Arctic Monkeys at their most cinematic, whilst Tranquility Base may have been divisive on launch, The Car blends the best aspects from across the group's eclectic discography and for the most part, soars.
Some singles floor you like a sledgehammer, you only need to hear them once to know to understand that they are exquisite pieces of art. Last year I felt that twice, once with Self Esteem’s ‘I Do This All The Time’ and then again with Little Simz’s ‘Introvert’. This year he’s happened just once, with ‘There Better Be A Mirrorball’. Full of luscious, Bond-Esque strings and accompanying gravitas, the opening track to ‘The Car’ doesn’t just kickstart things into motion, it completely readjusts what to expect from the Arctic Monkeys anymore.
Whilst their previous album ‘Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino’ shook up what fans could expect of the Arctic Monkeys, the jazz-infused piano-laden album that came off the back of what can be considered one of the most successful periods in the band's history with the stadium-sized fifth album ‘AM’, one which introduced the group to a whole new generation of fans.
Therefore ‘The Car’ is less of a jarring transition than before, yet, don’t be fooled by the ‘Tranquility Part 2’ accusations, the album is an entirely new beast and enticing direction from the group. When they returned to the stage over the summer there were very few teases on what direction their impending record would take, bar a rogue mirrorball adorning merchandise and the funk-filled live debut of the delicious ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’.
There’s so much interesting variety across ‘The Car’ with Turner seemingly taking inspiration from unconventional and surprising sources. The album revels in dread, suspense and the way Turner toys with tension. Take for example the thundering drones that open ‘Sculptures Of Anything Goes’, almost apocalyptic with the way it drowns around your ears, if ‘Mirrorball’ was destined for Bond, then ‘Sculptures’ can be found flowing through the sands of recent scientific epic Dune.
The title track, ‘The Car’ has an air of a murder mystery, its underlying acoustics sprinkled with suspicion, charged with a nerve-wracking tension you can’t quite place, like the score to a classic who-dun-it? Even its crackling guitar-charged outro feels distorted and out of place. The funk sensibilities of ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think Am’ reverberate across the record whether it be through the slow waltz of ‘Jet Skis on the Moat’ or the way Body Paint snarls with one of the year’s grandest and gnarliest guitar outros.
Across the latter half of the album, Turner evokes the image of a crooner as he swoons over the record's most luscious tracks. ‘I had big ideas, the band were so excited’ he sings with a starry-eyed twinkle in his tone on the unsurprisingly titled ‘Big Ideas’, its first half gently swaddles you in its arms before descending into a luxurious ballroom blitz, that funk-filled guitar rearing its head again to dazzle you into the effervescent ‘Hello You’, the natural chart-topper of the collection.
The concept of any of these songs having commercial appeal is certainly surprising, ludicrous even when you contemplate the track contains lines such as ‘Lego Napoleon movie written in noble gas-filled glass tubes underlined in sparks’ and ‘Taking a dive into your crystal ball, I’ve snorkelled on the beaches fruitlessly / Why not rewind to Rawborough Snooker Club? I could pass for seventeen if I just get a shave and catch some Zzz’. Yet the gleaming key refrain glues itself into your brain long after the track subsides.
It’s also a sharp reminder of the album's glaring conflict. The sharp juxtaposition of the album's two elements; its incredible instrumentation which often clashes with Turner’s mind-melting brand of peculiar poetry. Take for instance meandering ballad ‘Mr. Schwartz’ that whilst paints consistently evocative imagery of ‘velveteen suits’ and ‘gloved hands’ it feels ultimately so surface level, like Turner, is offering a glimpse of the world he’s trying to create without offering us a meaningful vacation to truly let the atmosphere and ambience set in.
Horns duly mark ‘Perfect Sense’, the album's elegant conclusion. It feels like the perfect encapsulation of the album as a whole, romantic, string-filled and full of Turner-isms waiting to be dissected and explored. Ultimately ‘The Car’ is screaming out to be performed in full, Turner and the group surrounded by an orchestra, letting the audience be soaked in the string-filled extravaganza. In the right setting like a ballroom or the Royal Albert Hall and it could result in a truly transcendent experience. How it will translate to a stadium will, to say the least, be an intriguing experience.
Nevertheless, I’m grateful we exist in a world where Arctic Monkeys allow themselves to experiment, expand and grow their sound. It’s a world in which art thrives, and this particular endeavour soars. As Turner puts it so surprisingly crudely “Puncturing your bubble of relatability with your horrible new sound”. Put plainly, he hears the protests of fans stuck on the classics, and honestly, he couldn’t care less.
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