Arctic Monkeys: 'The Car'

Oct 19

Oct 19 Arctic Monkeys: 'The Car'

“Don’t get emotional, that ain’t like you,” Alex Turner sings during the opening track, ‘There’d Better Be A Mirrorball’, on Arctic Monkeys’ new album ‘The Car’. Is it perhaps a homage to the shrinking section of the band’s fanbase who’ve been reluctantly and/or less than enamoured by the sonic turn the Sheffield quartet took on their previous release ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’? Or rather, a would-be headline that surmises the cryptic nature of Turner’s lyrical material throughout seven Arctic Monkeys records, and a further two LPs with The Last Shadow Puppets. Who knows.

When Arctic Monkeys first arrived on the scene during the halcyon days of MySpace, Limewire and CDs, they became the original social media band, amassing such a dedicated online following that when they began playing live shows tickets were ‘rarer than a dandelion and burdock’ (sorry). So is it any wonder, that now on album seven, they are as hidden away from the online world as humanely possible? Whilst drummer Matt Helders shares occasional photography on his Instagram, the rest of the band member’s presence online is that of paranoid ex-CIA technophile Dan Chase, portrayed by Jeff Bridges, in ‘The Old Man’. However, it is this ever-growing mystical nature that makes Arctic Monkeys even more endearing.

With seldom clues given by Turner, even in interviews, about the concept and meaning behind his recent lyrics, one thing is for sure: long gone are the days of crooning over ‘topless models’ and ‘blue moon girls’. He now observes the world around him in surrealist fashion; conjuring a comedic visual portrait of the mind as he warbles “performing in Spanish on Italian TV” on Humbug era-esque ‘Scupltures Of Anything Goes’, and creating an absurd fashion faux-pas in the making during the sultry number, ‘Jet Skis On The Moat’, that is so eye-watering in content it’ll undoubtedly be replicated on a catwalk in 2023, “pyjama pants and a Subbuteo cloak,” Turner delivers in his unique Sheffield-cum-LA drawl.

Turner’s flirted with the world of cinema since the Monkeys’ inception, from his parts in their early, quintessentially British music videos, through his neurotic references to Scorcese on ‘Tranquility…’, to his work with Richard Ayoade on the 2011 film ‘Submarine’. Yet, ‘The Car’ is their most soundtrack-ready album to date; whether it be the heart-stopping crescendos on ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’, or the spy-thriller strings that feature on ‘Hello You’ that seamlessly meander around Matt Helder’s steadfast drumming sections, it's unquestionably filmic in subject matter and auditory aesthetic. The album’s title track is a euphorically gentle number that, despite being best placed in a Sergio Leone spaghetti western, serves as the perfect mid-point in an album free of any particular heavy, AM-like rock cuts; instead, the Monkey’s choose to score a smorgasbord of pirate movies that exist only in Turner’s private collection, stored somewhere deep in the bowels of his inner-psyche. “The ballad of what could have been,” Turner croons on ‘Big Ideas’, as he reconnoitres memories of intellectual burglary, “I had big ideas / the band was so exciting / the kind you’d rather not share over the phone.” Recent single ‘Body Paint’, which the band teased on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, is the stand-out moment in an album of modern classics, and stakes a claim to the Monkeys’ sonic throne; it might just be Turner’s best-ever piece of songwriting.

Whilst it may separate opinion further between the Teddy Pickers and those in the fanbase that choose to aurally evolve with the band, Arctic Monkeys have embarked down a different road to many of their major league contemporaries with ‘The Car’. Choosing not to release passable iterations of the same album ten times over and resting up whilst the royalty checks come bouncing in, evening Noel, Turner and his motley crew have constructed an album that further broadens their sonic horizons than any betting man would have ever waged; onwards they journey without fear the wheels will ever come off.