a test drive with ‘The Car’ by Arctic Monkeys

Strings, jet skis and a mysterious man named Mr Schwartz: a track by track ofthe new Arctic Monkeys.

1. There’d Better Be a Mirrorball

Let’s get straight to the point: The Car is not new Tranquility Base Hotel& Casino_the album with which Arctic Monkeys released the arena rock ofpredecessor and chef d’oeuvre four years ago _AM (2013) turned his back onradically. Tranquility Base was Arctic Monkeys in space, a concept album asa Stanley Kubrick soundtrack. The Car is just as cinematographic, but a lotwider, lighter and – yes – more accessible. Or as Alex Turner put it in theBritish street newspaper The Big Issue said, ‘The sci-fi is off the table,we’re back on Earth.’

The proof is immediately delivered in opener and forward single There ‘dBetter Be a Mirrorball. No disco, but a break-up song packaged like a Bondnumber from the sixties. ‘Do you wanna walk me to the car?’ Turner wonders.Walking to the car with your loved one will never be the same.

The sci-fi is off the table, we’re back on Earth.>> Alex Turner

2. I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am

Turner once again wrote the picket fences of the new Arctic Monkeys recordsolo, from behind his Steinway & Sons. It was only later that the rest of thegroup was brought in. More specifically during the European FootballChampionship of 2021, where they watched with the entire band between therecordings. (Turner gave his comeback interview earlier this year to theFrench sports newspaper for a reason L ‘Equipe.)

‘In the summer of the European Championship we spent two or three weeks withthe boys as a band in the English countryside’, says Turner. “I then steppedaway from the piano for a while and enjoyed playing wahwah guitar again.” It’sthat wahwah guitar you hear in I Ain ‘t Quite Where I Think I Am, a songthat might as well have been from Turner’s side project The Last ShadowPuppets. Of everything you put in the trunk of The Car you will find, thisis by far the most funky and catchy.

3. Sculptures of Anything Goes

Dark, cumbersome but fat: with some good will you can Sculptures of AnythingGoes like distant relatives Humbug (2009), the third of the Monkeysproduced by Josh Homme. Although the deep bass and pulsating electronic drumsare actually unreleased Arctic Monkeys, and in that respect the song is morereminiscent of that rare time that Nick Cave – in Rings of Saturn from_Skeleton Tree_ – suddenly started flirting with electronics.

More than anywhere else on the record, Alex Turner’s on-again, off-againrelationship with rock music is highlighted here. ‘I wanted the rock bandbit turn it on and off,” he declared The Guardian. ‘On sculptures therock band slide is opened here and there for a measure or two, only to bepushed back again.’

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4. Jet Skis on the Moat

Summer 2014. A Canadian journalist speaks with Alex Turner and drummer MattHelders in front of a concert hall in Toronto, on the shores of Lake Ontario,but sees his interview cut short when suddenly two men on a jet ski pass byand start calling for the Monkeys. (Things like, “Which band is playingtonight? The Arctic Monkeys? Is that you?” To which Alex Turner: “You bet!”)Turner was apparently having so much fun doing that. Jet Skis on the Moat –there are the wahwahgi cakes again! — could be based on that particularinterview from eight years ago. At least, that’s what some Arctic Monkeys fanson the internet claim. Or they just have too much time.

5. Body Paint

The second forward single, and according to many fans ‘the best Arctic Monkeyssince AM has made it heard,” the British newspaper polled The Independent.Anyway is body paint the most versatile song on the entire album, half arock opera in which Turner, like the Bowie of the mid-seventies, croons overkeys, guitars and strings. Lots of strings.

Turner wrote a large part of the string arrangements for this album himselfand had them edited by Bridget Samuels, the artistic director of the LondonOrchestrate who previously produced soundtracks for films such as Under theSkin (with Scarlett Johansson), Jackie (with Natalie Portman) and_Midsommar_ (with Florence Pugh) supervised. Do you immediately know how it is_The Car_ sounds so cinematic and grand.

6. The Car

From big to small: title song The Car is one of the quietest on the record.Acoustic guitars predominate. The ‘sleepy amigos’ about whom Turner sings hereonly reinforce the mariachi feeling.

Incidentally, the album title came after Alex Turner saw a photo of patentedhobby photographer Matt Helders with a car on the roof of an abandoned parkinggarage. “I immediately got the impression that that had to be the next cover,”says Turner. And if you get the chance to record an album The Car you haveto grab it with both hands.’

If you get the chance to call an album The Car, grab it with both hands.>> Alex Turner

7. Big Ideas

Or as Turner calls it in the text itself: ‘The ballad of what could havebeen’. The Arctic Monkeys frontman imagines himself to be a brilliant composerwho, on his mandolin and with the backing of an orchestra, devised the themesong for a film about twins received by mass hysteria. Or something.

Big Ideas received a modest live premiere last week during the ArcticMonkeys showcase at Studio Brussel, but you can expect an even dreamier studioversion.

8. Hello You

Next I Ain ‘t Quite Where I Think I Am _the one and only uptempo song from_The Car. The Arctic Monkeys from the time of RU Mine? will never return,as Matt Helders pointed out in an interview this spring, but the guitar riffof hello you very reminiscent of that one Knee Socks one of those othercrowd favorites from AM.

hello you by the way, it houses one of the funniest lines of text AlexTurner has written for The Car from his pen: ‘I could pass for seventeen ifI just get a shave and catch some Zzz.’

9. Mr. Schwartz

Brian from Brianstorm. Arabella from Arabella. Receptionist Mark fromTranquility Base Hotel & Casino. Alex Turner has featured many characters inhis songs over the years. Mr Schwartz’s turn is on The Car. From the firsttime Arctic Monkeys played the song glued together by fingerpicking guitarslive last summer, the identity of Mr. Schwartz has been conjectured. The mostplausible guess came from a Reddit user who stumbled upon an Arctic Monkeys-linked Spotify playlist titled “Del Schwartz”—again: Monkeys fans obviouslyhave a lot of time—and googled Delmore Schwartz, the late American poet. andshort story writer who taught Lou Reed. Turner spoke to 3FM about ‘a hugecoincidence’ and claimed that he had simply seen the name Del Schwartz ‘on theback of a nineties Alfa Romeo’.

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10. Perfect Sense

Favorite Sausage Nightmare (2007) had 505 , AM had I Wanna Be Yours_and _Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino _had _The Ultracheese. Well-aimedclosing songs are a thing at Arctic Monkeys. Also Perfect Sense is such adead-end closing, one where you can see the credits roll across the screen.And one in which Alex Turner repeatedly wishes you good night against thebackground of a battery – there they are again – strings.

Of all songs on The Car this would be most suitable for performing with astring ensemble. Although it must be said right away: that will not happen.The Monkeys skillfully rejected an offer for a TV special with an orchestra.”Too predictable.”

However accessible Arctic Monkeys in 2022 may sound, the spirit of theobstinate rock band is still there.

The Car

Out on 21/10 at Domino/V2.

Arctic Monkeys