The Car is in every way a sequel to Tranquility Base Hotel Casino, the 2018 album that found Alex Turner pushing Arctic Monkeys in the direction his side project Last Shadow Puppets pursued. Louche and lugubrious, The Car is rife with signifiers of a stylish, seedy past: wah-wah guitars, swelling cinematic strings, tinkling ivories, and analog synths. What's missing is any sense of rock & roll, a swagger that's absent in the backbeat rhythms, slithery guitars, and falsetto croon Turner adopts for the majority of the album. Ever the wordsmith, he packs a lot of lyrics into his winding melodies yet ends up obscuring their intent by singing like a lounge singer whiling away his hours in a second-rate hotel. The effect is intentional and is not without appeal. There's a certain charm in hearing Arctic Monkeys abandon all their previous strengths, defiantly avoiding melody and muscle; few groups of their stature embark on such a radical revision of their aesthetic. The Car doesn't feel like a progression from Tranquility Base Hotel Casino so much as a holding pattern, though, with any forward motion arriving in arrangements, not compositions or execution, particularly because Turner seems to be angling for atmosphere, not hooks, with his melodies. The free-floating croon helps The Car amiably drift in space, but it also highlights how the record could use a couple of elements to bring it back to earth. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

1		There'd Better Be a Mirrorball
2		I Ain't Quite Where I Think I Am
3		Sculptures of Anything Goes
4		Jet Skis on the Moat
5		Body Paint
6		The Car
7		Big Ideas
8		Hello You
9		Mr. Schwartz
10		Perfect Sense

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