What Do You Think About The Car? I Think It’s Good.

Sorry I couldn’t help the shameless Declan Mckenna debut album “What Do You Think About The Car?” joke. This review has nothing to do with Declan Mckenna (but keep an eye out for my review of his concert later this week), this review is about Arctic Monkeys new album, named you guessed it, The Car.

My history with the Arctic Monkeys is a brief one, I like them. I like at least one song off of pretty much every album. But I don’t think I have ever actually listened to more than AM all the way through. I don’t really know why, I like them! I plan to change this hopefully this week because I want to rank all their albums for a blog post, but I should probably listen to the albums before I try to critique or praise them.

Nonetheless, I was excited for this album to come out! Between the 1975 release last week (which I also hope to review this week) and this album, I am all for the 2014 British rock resurgence. I am very over California bedroom pop. I decided to wait and listen to the album be played song by song with commentary by Alex Turner and Matt Helders on RadioX. But I kind of regret that, because I think the breaks between the songs somewhat ruined the flow of the album for me.

So I relistened a bit the other day, and then for real this morning (the album came out Friday, today is Monday). And I have to say, I love it. At first, it wasn’t really my thing, but turns out the album sounds a lot better on a cold and rainy day than on a depressingly hot and sunny one. I imagine the album really was made for a more sophisticated atmosphere than a 90-degree day in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.

The atmosphere of the album is perfectly clear within the first minute of the first track, There’d Better Be A Mirrorball. Released as a single in August, There’d Better Be A Mirrorball was instantly decisive among fans, surprised by the Arctic Monkey’s new sound. But after some time, you can’t ignore the charm of this song. It’s smooth, classy, grown-up, yet unique. It’s a perfect opener to the band’s sound for this album.

The other standouts on this album are Body Paint (another single), Big Ideas, and my personal favorite, Sculptures of Anything Goes. Driven by a drum machine, the song mixes the classy, soulful, jazzy, sound of this album with a darker, more ominous tone. And the result is a masterpiece filled with tension and danger, but in a classy James Bond way. More people should mix drum machines and orchestras because I love it.

There is at least one song I feel falls a little short though, and that is I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am. The song is just a little too minimal in instrumentation, yet rhythmically complicated. It’s mostly personal taste, but I find the phrasing and flow (or lack thereof) to be awkward. The song is trying to be suave and groovy, but for me, it achieves the opposite effect.

Overall though, the album is a huge success for Arctic Monkeys. We have been blessed with many well-known bands’ new albums lately and The Car is one of them. Arctic Monkeys has become another band that was able to not get stuck in an old sound and instead evolve and it is great! Only one song is not to my taste, and that is a hard feat. And with the undeniable warmth this album gives off, I’m sure The Car will be on repeat all of my fall and winter.