Released: 2022

Genres: Chamber Pop, Baroque Pop, Art Rock, Lounge

The Musiquarium’s The Car Review Score: 10 out of 10

On Arctic Monkeys’ seventh album, they successfully reinvent themselves once again, creating a lush and beautiful work of art in the process. James Ford returns as producer, continuing as the bands’ own George Martin/Nigel Godrich and unofficial fifth member.

The opening track, There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, is one of the strangest lead singles by the band, but also one of the most elegant songs they’ve ever recorded — it’s like an audition for a Bond theme. Arctic Monkeys go funky on I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am, which has some killer harmonies and wah guitar, as does the soulful Jet Skis on the Moat.

The ominous, synth driven and confrontational Sculptures of Anything Goes makes one yearn for the band to do a full-on electronic album and has Alex Turner asking the listener if their mother still thinks of him, as well as lyrics about a rare Nintendo DS game called City Life. The majestic Body Paint sounds Beatlesesque and has a similarly powerful outro to their previous album’s, Four Out of Five.

The title track is a moody acoustic track, with an excellent guitar solo and mysterious lyrics. Big Ideas is grandiose and truly beautiful. Hello You has drummer Matt Helders playing keyboards. Mr. Schwartz takes a detour into bossanova. Perfect Sense is a closer with instrumentation reminiscent to that of The Beach Boys’ magnum opus, Pet Sounds.

The Car feels like a continuation of 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, despite a general change in style and concept; where that album was a neo-psychedelic, sci-fi, lounge rock album about a hotel and casino on the moon, The Car is grounded on Earth, feeling more personal than TBH+C did. Here, Alex Turner swaps out the characters he portrayed on that album with himself, but these past two albums still have far more in common with each other than the rest of their discography — you still have Alex Turner doing his Bowie-like crooning voice, singing strange but witty lyrics and increasingly blurring the lines between his side-project The Last Shadow Puppets and Arctic Monkeys.

Because of the resemblance to Alex Turner’s side project, a lot of fans were unhappy with this direction and felt like this should have been a Last Shadow Puppets album instead, but a large group of vocal Arctic Monkeys fans have been notoriously difficult to please since the band’s first two albums, constantly criticizing the many left turns of the band. That very sense of adventure and unpredictability is what has made Arctic Monkeys such a fascinating band that has outlived many of its peers — you never know what’s going to come next and despite the risk-taking, the band always delivers.

The Car is one of my favourite albums of the decade so far and has me impatiently awaiting the next chapter in the band’s story.

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Arctic Monkeys on Discogs.

Back to the 2022 Album Guide or the Arctic Monkeys Reviews page.

Written by Brett Nippard